


In Fair Wittenberg

by devils_first_angel



Category: Hamlet - Shakespeare
Genre: Demisexual Horatio, Emotional Confrontation, Emotional Sex, Eventual Smut, Explicit Sexual Content, Fluff and Smut, Growing feelings, Hamlet struggles, Happy Ending, Horatio wants to help, Light Angst, Love, M/M, Mutual Pining, Romantic Tension, Sexual Tension, Slow Burn, So many emotions, Strangers to Friends to Lovers, WITTENBERG FIC, light emotional hurt/comfort, lol what is historical accuracy??, moody Hamlet, protective Hamlet, protective Horatio, slow built
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-13
Updated: 2020-04-16
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:00:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 43,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23632000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devils_first_angel/pseuds/devils_first_angel
Summary: The first time Horatio comes across Hamlet, crowned prince of Denmark, it takes him embarrassingly long to recognise him as the one he is.He doesn't expect to befriend the prince, let alone fall in love with him, but some things can't be helped. Things sort of spiral out of control from then on.
Relationships: Guildenstern & Rosencrantz, Hamlet & Horatio, Hamlet/Horatio (Hamlet), background Rosencrantz/Guildenstern (mostly implied), past Hamlet/Ophelia (mentioned)
Comments: 45
Kudos: 94





	1. A Tug

**Author's Note:**

> Hello there!  
> I hope you are all staying safe and healthy throughout self-isolation. I also hope these strange times give you some inspiration and the motivation to write - because what do we ever want more? I personally started writing on this a few weeks back and then stuff went crazy and I am now working on finishing it, so it won't take long, promise! (Not really promise though because we never know what might happen.) This is fun and very indulgent and I equally blame and thank my Shakespeare seminar for it - oh, and Shakespeare! Obviously. Have fun reading and, as always, be kind.

The first time Horatio comes across Hamlet, crowned prince of Denmark, it takes him embarrassingly long to recognise him as the one he is. He later excuses it before himself by blaming force of habit. It seems to Horatio that all of Denmark’s nobility send their offspring to Wittenberg, whether it is because the university is of great reputation or because it is so very willing to take even the most hopeless of cases if only the parents of said case are generous enough with their children’s study fees... Who is Horatio to form an opinion on the matter? He is content enough with Wittenberg and what his studies have to offer there and settles for ignoring the nobility scattered around the place, bringing chaos to what could have been a perfectly organised place for perfectly organised minds more often than not. He therefore doesn’t spare the young man in fine clothing that one day swooshes into his philosophy lecture half an hour late without any visible remorse, two of the most annoying new additions to Wittenberg’s nobler wassail scene in tow, more than a glance as the unnecessarily dramatic entrance interrupts him mid-argument in a debate with a fellow student that has obviously been letting his reading slide and is therefore about to lose this debate miserably.  
That glace, however, gets caught somewhere in the back of Horatio’s mind and he keeps coming back to it later, thinking that he should have known just who that young man is right then. His gaze is immediately met by two steely grey eyes, the colour and intensity of the sky above the stormy sea and there is something, not a spark, not quite a draw, but there is something not unlike a tug within Horatio, just he isn’t sure in which direction or where from or even where within him exactly; and it leaves a very slight uneasiness with Horatio that he doesn’t become fully aware of until he has long turned back around and finished making his point to his fellow student who reluctantly admits defeat and sits, and the young man with the stormy eyes, who has by now settles down with his two companions, has the audacity to whistle audibly through his teeth and Horatio glares back to where he sits, only to meet those eyes again and realise that they never left him when he looked away, but have been staring all the while. Startled, he blinks, and blames the strange heat sitting in the nape of his neck on the sensation of being watched. He has only recently read a dissertation on the matter of man’s unique capacity of sensing a spectator’s gaze – an awfully vague piece of writing that he had whole-heartedly disagreed with and thereon written quite a few pages about the carelessness with which some scholars mix the natural sciences, philosophy and theological contemplations without reflecting on the actual relationship and tension of these disciplines – and the thought comes back to him now, makes him frown because he never had experienced the sensation quite so strongly, and perhaps a point or two in the dissertation hadn’t been too bad after all, he’ll have to revisit his criticism on the matter. The young man, meanwhile, is still staring, and Horatio comes to with a start as his lecturer clears his throat and he realises that he’s been staring back without even noticing. He now turns back to his lecturer who thanks him mildly and, as Horatio sits down, asks the assembly of students whether any of them would have a point to add to the debate or whether they could move on. Horatio startles a second time, which is quite unlike him, as a silky but clear voice from the back of the room calls out.  
“I should think that any adding to such a swift and clean ending of a debate would do the very nature and purpose of debate wrong, professor.”  
Horatio’s head snaps around. It is the young man again, and Horatio frowns – because this nuisance hasn’t even heard half of the debate, or of his final argument – and is about to open his mouth to disagree strongly and loudly with the apparent opinion on the purpose of debate, but before he can do so much as take a breath to gather his words, his lecturer hums and responds.  
“Very well said indeed. Nevertheless, I’m sure Your Highness will agree that it is our scholarly duty to listen for any voice in a debate that we may not yet have heard, even and especially when we think to know and have given all sides a good listen.”  
The young man grins as he remains seated despite being addressed and answers graciously. “As surely as it is our duty to know and respect when a debate has rightfully been won as it seemed to me it had been in this case.”  
It is in this very moment that Horatio has the revelation and it stuns him so much that what might be taken as a compliment fully bypasses him. _Good heavens, it is the young prince Hamlet!_ He very nearly staggers to his feet with the gravity of his realisation, but just so manages to stop himself and keep his reaction to placing a hand on the desk before him to steady himself. He now, on closer look, also recognises the two shadows the prince carries: The lords Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. The pair of them had arrived some two or three months ago and been the spring of much trouble and many stories of legendary nights passed on among the sort of students that Horatio usually avoids. The two troublemakers, however, Horatio had not been able to avoid. His reputation of helping out a small circle of struggling students had somehow spread on to them and as the first essays became long overdue, one afternoon Guildenstern had dragged Rosencrantz into the library up to where Horatio likes to sit and work and had begged him to help his friend (and, less urgently but still very much necessary, him). Horatio found them to be annoying more than anything else, but figured out soon that they were good men and meant no harm, but mischief, and never to those who didn’t deserve it. He gets along rather well with them as he helps them out and they let him in on a piece of knowledge or two about Wittenberg’s nobility, which could prove wealthy at all times for someone as Horatio who comes without a drop of noble blood. Aside from their irritating habit to try talking Horatio into joining in on their “adventures” and the strange nagging at the back of Horatio’s head where he can’t stop pondering on the inseparability of the two – because neither has he, nor does he know of anyone who has ever seen the pair apart, but they must have separate lectures, and just how do they do it?? – Horatio doesn’t mind them really and could possibly even like them as long as they don’t try to be cleverer in lectures than they actually know they are. Their newly appearing ability to marvel at every word and action the prince Hamlet says and makes, however, is nothing but unpleasant in Horatio’s eyes, and he wonders, at a very brief sideway glance he sees the prince make, whether Hamlet feels the same, but has the decency to turn back to his studies quickly as the lecturer finishes his short dialogue with Hamlet, _the very crowned prince of Denmark,_ and keep his head down. The lecturers are usually very lenient towards Horatio. They like him and appreciate a student so tedious and interested, and sometimes they even do their best to keep on his side when he gets into a more nasty debate with some lord, but where it comes to royalty, Horatio knows how his chances really stand, and as unafraid as he is to fight any fellow student no matter their rank or title on his opinions when he disagrees, he decides it is wisest to keep his head down until he knows what to think of this prince of Denmark that now sits in his philosophy lecture.  
As Horatio slips out of the lecture room a good hour and a half later, he passes by the prince quickly, and there is this feeling at the back of his neck again, the one of being watched, and he just so fights the urge to glance back because he is sure he would meet these stormy eyes again and somehow the thought unsettles him and he doesn’t understand why. As he flits from the room, he shakes the thought off and goes about his way.

*******************

It turns out prince Hamlet is not just in Horatio’s philosophy lecture, but that they share most of their lectures. Not that Horatio minds. The prince does have a tendency to be what he seemingly considers fashionably late to lectures, but in the least his contributions to the studies are well-informed, witty and a lot more interesting than what most nobles at Wittenberg manage to produce even in their lightest moments. Horatio has to admit to himself that he is quite impressed, and makes a mental note to revisit his prejudices towards noble families sending their offspring to Germany’s newly most promising university. There is another habit that prince Hamlet picks up, however, that irritates Horatio, and not because he minds it so much as because it unsettles him. Hamlet makes no attempt to hide it when he disagrees with a point a fellow student makes – not just that, he makes no attempt to hide his ridicule and superiority. And superior he is, as he is usually fairly more informed and eloquent than his competitors in debate. But Hamlet doesn’t always step in to debate a point when he disagrees with a particularly foolish argument someone makes, as Horatio tries to do. Instead, he makes faces. Very obvious faces that draw a lot of attention. And it _flusters_ Horatio. He frowns upon Hamlet’s habit. It bugs him that the prince doesn’t show enough respect to challenge his fellow scholars in debate, but confidently assumes the superiority of his argumentation. A good portion of arrogance comes with it and Horatio despises nothing more than arrogance, in a royal as much as (if not more than) in anyone else. Nevertheless, it flusters him, this habit, and it takes him a particularly frustrating lecture on teleology to figure out why this may be.  
It is one of the more thick young lords this time around that mutter his opinion on the matter at hand towards the lecturer who is patiently waiting in the front for the terror of it to be over, but the moment stretches on endlessly. The young lord must have had a letter by his parents reminding him to take care of his duties, either that or a rather harsh wake-up call in the form of grades that bring him close to failing his classes despite his noble blood, or he wouldn’t even open his mouth in lecture. Horatio doesn’t recall him ever having opened his mouth in lecture before, in fact he hardly recalls his face and it doesn’t seem unlikely that this young lord has hardly come to this lecture before, Christ, Horatio catches himself thinking that it isn’t too unlikely that this is not the lecture this lord had meant to show up to today even, as what he is saying has little to no relevance to the topic and is nevertheless so daft that Horatio won’t even bother to get up for an argument to take this student down from his height at which he confidently blabbers on. It’s just not worth it and Horatio is close to turning away from it in order to not have to witness this misery any longer, but his eye is caught by prince Hamlet’s incredulous open-mouthed staring from the back of the class. As usual, Horatio sits in the front and has to turn back to look at most of his fellow students when they get up for a speech, and it is just as usual that prince Hamlet finds himself at the back of the class, today for once without his constantly snickering companions, but from where Horatio sits in direct line of sight past the speaking young lord. Their eyes meet and Hamlet raises both eyebrows with a meaningful look.  
_Are you thinking what I’m thinking?_  
Horatio isn’t proud of it, but he can’t help himself and rolls his eyes in agreement. _Absolutely horrid._  
An expression of surprise passes over the prince’s face, shortly followed by something else: delight. He wiggles his eyebrow and cocks his head, opening his eyes comically wide and staring at an especially stupid remark coming from the speaker. _Oh my God, did he really just say that?_  
Horatio fights a grin and shakes his head slightly. _Where does he think his argumentation is going?_  
Hamlet silently gasps at the next turn the speaker’s rhetoric takes. _How is this getting worse by the minute?_  
Horatio shrugs helplessly. _Unbelievable. There should be no decline possible from this._  
Hamlet cocks his head again and raises one eyebrow questioningly, challenging, offering...  
Horatio grimaces and draws his eyebrows together questioningly. _What’s the point in debating_ that?  
Hamlet chuckles and Horatio is about to join in as he hears a huff from behind him and turns his head to see their lecturer pass an irritated look between them. Horatio blinks apologetically and turns back around to listen to the young lord who is somehow _still speaking..._ Prince Hamlet seems unbothered by the lecturer’s scolding gaze and there is a first revelation for Horatio, when the thought hits him that part of him wishes he could show his reactions to the lack of wit some members of nobility prove daily at this university as openly as the prince can.  
He doesn’t join back into the game of exchanging looks with the prince who doesn’t seem to mind, but now that his interest is awoken, he cannot help but study Hamlet’s facial expressions closely for their meaning, and as he catches himself smiling when he thinks to have caught a thought hidden in the quirk of his eyebrows (and quickly suppresses said smile), another realisation comes. It dawns on him that whenever prince Hamlet obviously disagrees but doesn’t say a word, Horatio craves to hear his opinion, for often enough he marvels at the prince’s sharp tongue and insightful arguments, but when prince Hamlet is set on keeping his mouth shut, there is no getting it out of him, simply his incredulous and sneering looks thrown at the subject of his disagreement.  
And now that Horatio has been imparted with a notion of what these looks may communicate, he cannot help but watch out for them from lecture to lecture. And it flusters him, that he does. But what flusters him more is that the young prince seems aware, and from time to time makes a particularly comical face and throws a look just to him and whenever their eyes meet in these moments, Horatio is sure to avert his gaze quickly and scold himself for being drawn into the royal’s insolence.

*******************

The weeks pass and Horatio has more important things to keep himself busy with than young prince Hamlet. His studies, for one. The poor quality of his accommodation is another worry on his mind, but it will have to wait until after mid-term grades and the new assessing of his study fees. He prays dearly that he will be able to afford a better location for he is afraid that his current one will fall apart around him even before his landlord kicks him out, but there is little hope that he will be able to afford an upgrade. For now, there is little he can do, but focus on his studies and pray.  
Prince Hamlet is a constant nagging at the back of his mind, but not much more. It is never more than a glance or so they share and the strange feeling at the nape of Horatio’s neck when their eyes meet, but they never share a single word.  
That is until one day in a lecture on philosophy and science, their lecturer speaks of common differences of the female to the male in fauna and utters the sentence “The female of the species is more deadly than the male.” to which some laughter ensues and a pseudo-philosophical remark or two echo through the room, finding their climax in a cheap joke by some student that especially Rosencrantz and Guildenstern laugh loudly at. Horatio busies himself ignoring the short uproar and stopping himself from rolling his eyes in the front of the class, as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern suddenly fall silent and it takes Horatio a moment before he looks about to realise that it is because Hamlet has promptly stood up and is facing the student who has made the poor joke.  
“Actually, I do find it a point to marvel at,” he says swiftly, his face deadly serious and the class falls silent. “There is quite a lot in the nature of the fauna that we find in human nature as well. And considering that the male seems in most aspects of nature, animal _and_ human, more aggressive than the female, isn’t it then quite interesting that a part of us relates to that notion of the female yet being more deadly? I take it from the declaration you just made that you think a woman to be a lot less deadly than a man, and surely is the fairer sex at most times of a lesser threat to us physically than it could be, but just how it _could!_ Is there one of you who could not think of an example of a vengeful woman, or a mother ready to protect her child with all she has to offer – in which, again, mankind is much alike with the fauna – and can a woman in such an example not be horribly deadly? And be it just because a woman fights with no fairness when she fights, methinks it is no less true!”  
Silence has fallen upon the room. Horatio can’t help himself. He doesn’t even glance at his lecturer for allowance, he is standing on his feet before he really knows what is happening to him. “My lord,” he inclines his head and the corners of Hamlet’s mouth quirk upwards, but Horatio doesn’t even acknowledge it. “ _Me_ thinks you do the debate on the nature of the female wrong in not mentioning that the reason the woman fights without fairness is that she only fights when the situation is beyond all fairness. In fact, I would say that the woman only fights because she is forced to by none other than man – and I believe your examples to stress this fact. What will a mother protect her child from, if not from some circumstance brought on by man? And the woman who is vengeful will feel betrayed and fight unfairly for she feels that she has been treated unfairly! I mean not to defend the deadliness a woman can bring, nor deny or relativise it. I simply think it wrong to explain her deadliness with the unjust means of her fighting. The female is not given chance to fight fairly, she sees no need to fight fairly! She lacks the male’s aggression and therefore takes not part in his orderly matters of fighting in ways we call “fair.” The woman’s deadlines, methinks, is brought on where she cannot escape the sphere of male aggression. I believe that an in-depth look at many a piece of ancient literature will show us just that thesis put into more poetic words than I can author right now.”  
Prince Hamlet’s face is grazed by a small smile that Horatio thinks suits him rather well. The class is still utterly silent, all gazes now drawn from Horatio back to Hamlet as he hums and answers, smile unfaltering. “I marvel at your philosophy, and your reasoning is well. Literature can sure attest such, my experience proves you right in that, and I am glad you pointed out that the female may be driven to unfairness by unfairness; indeed I would have to agree. Personally, I believe the female to be no much different from the male in deadliness. I think she has a potential for aggression as much as he does, and is as deadly as he is. It seems to me more that her aggression comes to light in greater portions if less often whereas the male’s aggression leaks more steadily. But truly, their deadliness comes down to the same. Nevertheless, it fascinates me how nature draws us in with the implication of female’s deadliness perhaps being true in our female as much as in fauna. In truth, it is ever the more interesting that the female shall be considered so deadly when submitted to pressure by literature although she is in truth no more deadly than the male.”  
“In truth,” Horatio can’t fight a quick quirk of his lips himself. Who would have thought that he would find himself agreeing so strongly with something prince Hamlet openly said that he would never have dared say aloud? “If you allow me the speculation, my lord, perhaps literature justifies its fascination with something in which mankind is inherently different from nature with finding the similarity elsewhere. For it seems to me, looking at literature, that the female is found to be more deadly to the heart than the male, if not elsewhere.”  
Hamlet’s small smile turns into a sly grin and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern behind him whisper to each other before laughing to themselves as Hamlet looks Horatio up and down and says, “Well, now _that_ I am afraid I cannot possibly agree with.”  
There is that heat at the back of Horatio’s neck again and he is speechless for but a second, but it is enough because without him knowing how or why, their debate is apparently finished and Hamlet has sat back down and he sits himself and the lecturer clears his throat and continues talking about what he had actually been talking about before the disruption and when Horatio next turns around when someone else is speaking about something unrelated to the earlier matter, he only catches Hamlet’s eyes for a split second before, it seems to him, the prince averts his gaze and joins an apparently very entertaining discussion with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

*******************

The matter of Hamlet’s comment occupies Horatio’s mind for longer than he is comfortable with, but he has successfully pushed it from his mind before he next comes across the young prince, and when he does, the implications of what he said don’t come to mind again before their ways have parted, so turbulent and sudden is their meeting.  
It is the day their essay on a subject of theology is assessed. It is quite a niche topic and Horatio is fully immersed in his thoughts about it as he makes his way to the library. He usually makes a head start on his work, especially when he knows the topic to be this specific, and he had a feeling that there might only be one copy of the book he is looking for in regard to this topic when the lecturer spoke about it... His feeling doesn’t prove him wrong. The librarian confirms that there is only one copy of the book he needs to be found in the entirety of Wittenberg and gives him directions to the book and Horatio sets off. He is still deeply caught in his thoughts and in his head he is halfway into his essay’s introduction when he finds the book. He flinches terribly as he reaches for the book and in the same moment he grabs it, a second, strange hand does the same and meets his on the back of the book. Both hands freeze and Horatio looks up in confusion, only to meet the eyes of prince Hamlet who is standing right next to him and seems just as surprised to not have notices that someone else was heading down this aisle of bookshelves as Horatio is. For a long, tense moment they just stand and stare at each other, painfully close, breathing the same air, and Horatio thinks he can smell distant notion of oak wood and ink on fresh paper and – and he snaps out of it, pulling his hand away from under Hamlet’s and taking a step back, inclining his dead. “My lord,” he mumbles.  
Hamlet remains to stand as he was, hand on the back of the book, eyes boring into Horatio’s. Finally, he smiles and relaxes a little. “Horatio, isn’t it?”  
Horatio blinks. “Indeed, my lord.” He hadn’t expected the prince to know his name.  
Hamlet’s smile widens a little and he pulls the book out from the shelf, holding it out between them. “I’m afraid we’re going for the same book.”  
Horatio is quick to take another small step back. “After you, my lord.”  
Hamlet raises an eyebrow. “Are you sure? I am informed that this is the only copy of it there is.”  
“It is no problem, my lord,” Horatio reassures. “There is plenty of time before this essay needs to be handed in.”  
“And yet, you’re here already...”  
“I like to make a head start on my work. But I will be just fine starting on it a little later than usual.”  
Hamlet still smiles his small bemused smile. “Yes,” he muses. “Guildenstern said something like that.”  
Horatio raises his eyebrows. Of course, this explains how prince Hamlet would know his name.  
“They are quite fond of you, you know?” Hamlet continues. “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.”  
Horatio gives his politest smile. “Are they, my lord? Well, I am quite flattered.”  
Hamlets quiet, yet open laughter at that takes him by surprise. “Nothing to be too flattered about, they are fond of everyone who will help them to a drink, an evening’s entertainment or a grade to pass their studies. And I do not believe that it flatters you either. Methinks you are cleverer than that.”  
Horatio startles. “My lord...?”  
Hamlet’s ambiguous smile is back. “Well, I would hate to disrupt your usual manners of studying. If you will, we can sit over this reading matter together. I would be delighted to have a mind as yours to discuss the topic of this essay with.”  
It is a tempting offer and for a long moment Horatio seriously considers it, but then sense comes back to him, reminding him of such fundamental truths as that he is nobody to sit and study with a crowned prince, no matter how openly said crowned prince may be offering his company, and he carefully backs off. “I would not stand in the ways of your studies, my lord. I will return to the book when you are done with it. Until then I have enough other studies to occupy myself with.”  
For a very short moment Hamlet seems disappointed, but not surprised, and then his small smile comes back, now more calculating than before, it seems. “Very well,” he says. “As you wish.” But then he lingers before leaving, looking Horatio up and down again, and he mutters something that somehow leaves Horatio frozen in place. “They may be fond of everyone, but you may actually be deserving of their fondness... By any means, you should let yourself be flattered. A man of your wit could never stand in the way of my studies, I find it most enticing to hear what your mind puts forth. Perhaps another time, good Horatio.”  
And with that, he is gone, and suddenly the thoughts of that look and his words and so many shared looks are back and Horatio feels dizzy and isn’t sure why, and it takes him another minute before he manages to leave the aisle of bookshelves and he leaves the library as well because he feels that he needs some fresh air.

*******************

Horatio tries to push the confusion that is Hamlet of Denmark from his mind as best as he can. He finds himself oddly reassured by the thought that his somewhat distant “relation” to the prince could probably become no more strange. Oh, how wrong he is!  
The days are becoming more moist as rain pours down over Wittenberg relentlessly with apparently no intention of stopping any time soon and Horatio finds himself outside of his rooms more often than inside, in fear that the rotten building will finally give up on the little bit of will to live that is left in it. It is so that he finds himself absent-mindedly reading one of Aristophanes’ comedies, strolling down the hallway towards the kitchen in the early morning hours in hopes of gathering an early breakfast so he can find the energy to get some studying done after a long night of nothing less. It seems to him he hears footsteps and voices from down the hallway, but they disappear in the far distance soon enough and it isn’t exactly uncommon for students who live closer to the kitchen (not that Horatio is one of them, the wealthiest students live close to the kitchen,) to sneak down in the early morning hours for a snack. The sun is on the brink of rising, the hallway dimly lit by two torches on one wall and the light beginning to seep in through the windows. Horatio is quite content in his reading despite his mind being tired. It is nothing an early breakfast can’t fix and his steps are slow on the cold stone floor.  
Suddenly, he stops as he hears a noise. He looks up from his book, listens, waits. Just as he thinks he might have imagined it and wants to continue his way, the noise repeats itself. It sounds a bit like... muffled coughing. He looks around, but the only thing down the hallway is a slim, but broad cabinet that seems to have been put there by a student who was trying to carry it elsewhere, but forgot it or left it behind. Horatio frowns. The noise is repeated again and his frown deepens. It comes from the cabinet. After a moment’s hesitation, he steps towards it, reaches out – another cough. Horatio has had enough. With a huff, he reaches out and swiftly opens one of the two cabinet doors.  
The sight that greets him is similarly as confusing as... strangely endearing. But confusion definitely wins out. Prince Hamlet is squeezed into the small space inside the cabinet, sitting on the floor, back against one side. He is wearing what seems to be quite formal attire made of valuable fabrics, but his feet are bare and a blanket is wrapped around his shoulders. He looks up at Horatio in something between surprise and annoyance, his features softening a little as he sees who it is, but then he frowns and presses the index finger of one hand against his lips. “Shhhh,” he hisses conspiratorially. “I’m hiding.”  
Horatio blinks. A hundred questions flood his mind, one crazier than the next, but he isn’t sure if that is because of him or because of the insanity of the situation presented to him. He is at a loss of words although not of things to say and in his stupor he does the only thing that seems sensible to do to his confused and tired mind: he closes the door of the closet again.  
As if in a dream, Horatio continues on to the kitchen where he gathers some food – freshly baked goods, the baker scolds him for being to the kitchen so early, but sees his tired, glazed over eyes and takes pity – before making his way back. And indeed, he can nearly convince himself that he is dreaming the whole thing, if it weren’t that he could never in his life dream such a thing up; and as he passes by the closet again, he stops and listens, and as if only waiting for this moment, the closet door opens and a long arm reaches out, taking one of the croissants he is carrying before slipping back inside. After a moment’s consideration, the door opens a little bit again, and prince Hamlet reaches out and gently takes his copy of Aristophanes from Horatio’s other hand, closet door closing behind it. Horatio blinks rapidly, shakes his head, and continues his way down the hallway. He briefly wonders whether he has died, whether his room has collapsed into itself and onto him and this is some strange version of afterlife, but he discards that thought when he hits his foot in a doorway and the pain shooting up his leg shows him that he is very much alive, and very much awake, and above all he is very much confused.

*******************

As Horatio spends less and less time in his room, he finds himself more and more distracted with prince Hamlet’s moods. He tries, he really tries, not to think too much on it, not to take notice of them, but it is difficult, and as it is the third time that he sits by the big chestnut tree in the town square trying to study, only to be interrupted by prince Hamlet who has this time decided to pick a competition with a local shop owner’s dog to determine who of them can bark the loudest – another time Horatio has caught sight of him, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, running from a man from whose shop they have stolen ladies hats, and yet another time the prince had assembled a dozen children who had been playing in the street and been positioning them to use them as soldiers in his retelling of some famous battle – Horatio finally decides to move his studies from outside in the sun back to the library where the thought of prince Hamlet lurks around any corner, but at least the real prince Hamlet doesn’t.  
Back to the library, however, he is met more frequently with the lords Rosencrantz and Guildenstern who are apparently in great need of catching up on studies that they have let slide. The two are delighted to run into Horatio more often than not and he soon finds himself spending nearly as much time in helping them with their studies as he spends working on his own.  
It is one such afternoon when Horatio finds himself in the library, reading through a rather clumsily written German essay from Guildenstern’s messy noble hand. Guildenstern is occupying the chair opposite him and nervously watches as Horatio tries not to grimace at the choice of every other word. Rosencrantz, meanwhile, is sitting in the windowsill next to their desk, reading some book in Latin, taking thrice the time Horatio did when he read the same volume.  
Guildenstern sighs and leans back in his chair. “Well, then. Show no mercy, Horatio. Tell us. How bad is it?”  
Horatio glances up from the paper in front of him. “To be frank, my lord?”  
“Surely,” Rosencrantz calls from where he is still reading. “There is no quality we cherish more in you than your frankness, good Horatio. Methinks that, were it not for your frank and free speech, your tutoring would be no help to Guil, for he needs to be told a stern few words or he won’t move his ass to do a single bit of work.”  
Guildenstern throws a pencil at his friend that Rosencrantz easily catches. “Don’t pretend like you’re any better!”  
Horatio frowns. “Please refrain from throwing my stationery.”  
Guildenstern is at least self-conscious enough to look apologetic. Rosencrantz only snorts. Horatio sighs.  
“Well, in earnest, my lord: I know not how you have so far passed your German classes, considering your poor knowledge of the language becoming evident in this essay.”  
Guildenstern makes a face. “Well, I think the spoken language comes more easily to me than the written form of it.”  
Horatio raises an eyebrow. “What I have heard from your German attests no such thing, I’m afraid.”  
Rosencrantz laughs in his corner and Guildenstern shoots him an angry look. “Not everyone can be fluent in Latin, Greek, and three more continental languages!”  
“Well enough people are fairly capable of it!” Rosencrantz snorts. “And not just our scholars, fellow students too – just take Horatio—“  
“Horatio is a remarkable example, but hardly a student can compare with him in all of Wittenberg!” Guildenstern shoots back. “Or can you give me one name more of an honourable student who knows his languages as well as Horatio does?”  
Rosencrantz’s smile widens. “I sure can, Guil. Or do you see our sweet prince anywhere around? I’m sure he is out in the streets drinking, starting up a quarrel with some local in fluent German right now.”  
Guildenstern rolls his eyes, defeated. “Well had I a – brain – the size of his, I would be holding myself in any language with quite the same confidence as he is. But you cannot possibly be asking me to compare myself to him! He is the only noble I know of in all of Wittenberg who hands in his essays when they are actually due!”  
Horatio lets out a snort. He hadn’t meant to, but it happens before he can stop himself. And now Rosencrantz and Guildenstern’s attention is drawn solely to him. Rosencrantz smirks.  
“An opinion, Horatio?”  
Horatio coughs. “Not at all, my lord.”  
“Oh come now, don’t lie to us, Horatio!” Guildenstern teases.  
Horatio grits his teeth. “My lords, I am sure I am not in the least entitled to an opinion on any matter regarding the prince.”  
Rosencrantz laughs out loud. “Oh, Horatio, don’t make yourself boring! I am sure it was just yesterday in our lecture on logic and scholarly discourse that you proudly defended your point that any educated individual is free to an opinion on any matter, be it his place to speak of it or not!”  
“Well then, my lord, it is surely not my place.”  
Guildenstern clicks his tongue scoldingly. “Oh but we give you the space, Horatio, do make it place! And didn’t you win that debate, proudly too, saying that a scholar should be in the place to voice any opinion, rightfully formed, on any such subject out of his reach, and if with careful respect still no less loudly?”  
Horatio sighs heavily as he corrects a few spelling mistakes in Guildenstern’s essay. The two lords are mercilessly staring at him expectantly.  
“Oh please, Horatio,” Rosencrantz finally quietly says. “We truly do appreciate how freely you speak of and to any nobility. It is refreshing if nothing else, and what many a man here deserves to hear, but never has.”  
“Well, that is precisely the matter, my lord,” Horatio gives in, looking up. “You see, this German essay that your comrade has, judging by its quality, only started on today – or so I hope, judging by the quality of it – that very German essay has been handed in by the prince Hamlet a week ago.”  
“Yes,” Guildenstern nods.  
“Which was half a month later than it has actually been due,” Horatio swiftly continues. “You see, my lords, your kind runs on other due dates than a man like I does. Truly, I know of not a single noble in all of Wittenberg that has ever handed a piece of work in on time because you can freely take a date and interpret day and month as something else than what is says. Perhaps prince Hamlet hands his work in on _your_ time, but in actual fact he definitely does not hand it in any more on time than any other noble in Wittenberg.”  
Guildenstern and Rosencrantz share a look.  
Horatio turns back to the essay he is trying to save, but before he gets very far, Rosencrantz interrupts him yet again.  
“Pray tell, Horatio – forgive our curiosity, but we would dearly like to know: What do you think of the young prince Hamlet?”  
Horatio startles, then blinks. “My lord... I would rather not speak to you of the matter, to be truthful.”  
“But why not?” Rosencrantz inquires. “You are usually not hesitant to speak to us of your opinion of any noble at university. What is the difference now?”  
“Is royalty where you draw the line?” Guildenstern asks, with what appears to be genuine curiosity. “To speak freely in critical words of nobility is an ability you have mastered, with little hesitance, good conscience and fair confidence. Surely, it would surprise me, should speaking this way of royalty be too dangerous to you, but not very... So is his title what makes you hesitate?”  
Horatio frowns. “Not quite, my lords.”  
“You think of royalty no more highly than of all other nobility?” Rosencrantz suspects.  
“I think no less highly of nobility than they deserve, my lords, I have told you oft enough – royalty’s rule of the world is as just as God will have it, I simply think that they are to be regarded with no greater respect as scholars solely for their title, but that often they assume to be deserving of greater respect as scholars when they are indeed not. It is no different with royalty than with any other nobility, but that they can be assuming of even greater respect as it is.”  
Guildenstern smiles. “Yes, we know your opinions. So if royalty is no different than nobility in your scholarly regard, then why won’t you share with us your opinions on prince Hamlet?”  
Horatio hesitates a moment, before he looks up from the essay again. “My lords, you are, I take it, quite close friends to his Highness the prince?”  
“Quite close,” Guildenstern repeats in agreement.  
“And, my lords... I also assume that you are sent with him to Wittenberg to report back to the court in Elsinor any interesting thing and matter taking place in his life?”  
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern fall very silent, sharing another look.  
“So he is fair _and_ wise,” Rosencrantz finally says.  
“Fairly too wise,” Guildenstern jokes.  
Horatio suppresses a polite apology. The lords have brought this onto themselves. They insistently pressed on the topic after all.  
“It is a dangerous sport, that,” Rosencrantz conversationally speaks, leaving his place in the windowsill and settling into a chair next to Guildenstern’s. “You see, we truly do care for the prince. And yet we have our duties to fulfil. And our lords Hamlet understands that very well, you see. It is a careful balance, that of love and duty... And a difficult one to hold at times.”  
Horatio looks between them. He has never seen the pair of them so serious, he thinks. “My lords, I should not think so,” he nevertheless says.  
“You should not?” Guildenstern asks.  
“No, my lords. Methinks that no duty is a greater one to hold then one of love.”  
Rosencrantz smiles slyly. “Well, good Horatio, you are of no noble blood, as you say yourself. Perhaps there are differences between us nobles and you commoners after all.”  
“I think not, at heart, mind, soul, or conscience, my lords,” Horatio shoots back.  
Guildenstern and Rosencrantz raise their eyebrows at his open show of disapproval with the nature of their loyalty to the prince and Horatio wonders if perhaps now he has gone a step too far. He quickly adds to his statement.  
“Either way, now I find myself in a strange position when speaking to you of the prince that I would rather not be in. For I know not how, truly, you regard him, in one sense or the other. And I know not what of that which I say you will regard in which way, and therefore do not know how to speak to you of him without putting myself, his Highness or you in a position possibly compromising in ways I could not possibly assess fully.”  
The lords before him share yet another look. Their smiles turn more bemused than tense again, and Horatio allows himself to relax, but only a little bit.  
“It seems, Horatio, that you are fairer to us in this regard than we deserve in your eyes,” Rosencrantz murmurs. But before Horatio can react to that statement, Guildenstern interrupts the moment by thinking out loud.  
“Nevertheless, I would have loved to hear your assessment of the prince! He is of a remarkable mind, you’d have to agree. He masters all studies with ease and draws in any man with his charms. And yet, there is nobody yet who can have claimed to have been safe from or truly understanding of his moods. Some say the royalty has taken heavily to his mind. Truly, I think, the freedoms of Wittenberg draw out of him what has been carefully contained for years at court!” The last bit is muttered conspiratorially, and Rosencrantz laughs out loud.  
“Like we wouldn’t know ourselves how intoxicating the freedoms of Wittenberg can be!”  
At that, Guildenstern throws his comrade a look so full of fondness that Horatio suddenly finds it painful to look at it.  
“Truly, I think that the prince is in need of a mind to match his. He is in some sort of great imbalance that brings on his moods, and what can help this if not a kindred mind?” Rosencrantz adds.  
Guildenstern grins. “Not just a mind, but perhaps a heart and soul and body, too, don’t you think?”  
Horatio is blushing and he isn’t even sure why, but this is not a turn he wanted this conversation to take. “Well,” he mutters. “Judging by what I have seen of his moods, I would say that you will busy yourself for a while with finding a mind to match his. Either way, I am not sure how you will want to find it if you cannot even draw up a readable essay in German. I suggest you busy yourself with improving your skills in that first.”  
With that he hands Guildenstern’s essay back to him and Rosencrantz pats his friend on the back with an empathetic grin as the scene is suddenly interrupted by soft laughter from nearby. All three of them turn their heads, and there he is: Prince Hamlet, leaning against a bookshelf not far from where they’ve been sitting all this time, studying them with an attentive gaze. Horatio swallows and suddenly feels hot all over.  
The two lords on the other side of the table seem a lot less bothered. Rosencrantz gets up from his seat without any hurry while Guildenstern’s eyes go back to scanning the notes Horatio left on his essay.  
“How long have you been standing there?” Rosencrantz asks friendly as he retrieves his book from the windowsill.  
Hamlet smirks. “Longer than you’d like.”  
The two lords snort at that whereas Horatio thinks he might faint any second, but Rosencrantz and Guildenstern make ready to leave and join the prince without another words about it. Right before they go, Hamlet seems to remember something. He rummages through his satchel quickly and then steps up to where Horatio is sitting, neatly placing his copy of Aristophanes’ comedies on the desk in front of him. As he leans down to do so, Horatio immediately leans back a little, but not far enough so that he cannot feel the warmth Hamlet radiates and catch that scent of oak wood again...  
“I believe this is yours.” Hamlet smiles innocently.  
Horatio stares, first at him, then at the book, then at Hamlet again. “Yes, my lord,” he finally manages to say. “Thank you, my lord.”  
Hamlet’s smile widens. “No, thank _you.”_  
And then he gives Horatio a strange look, and turns around to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern who give Hamlet a strange look before they turn as well and the three of them leave. Only when they’ve gone does Horatio notice that he must have been holding his breath.

*******************

It turns out that prince Hamlet has left pencil notes in his copy of Aristophanes. At first, Horatio is offended. Then, he begins to read them and finds himself laughing harder at some of the comments than he has in a long time. A few of the remarks, however, make Horatio blush. In every other conversation or gesture Hamlet seems to see the implication of homoerotic relations between the characters and the way he voices it causes Horatio to put the book aside after two or three such comments to calm himself before reading on. Not that he necessarily disagrees, he has found himself aware of such implications before, but the prince has a very... explicit use of language.  
Horatio tries his best to come to terms with the fact that being in prince Hamlet’s presence as well as thinking too much about prince Hamlet makes him uncomfortable. He doesn’t understand why and searches his mind for a reason unsuccessfully for days on end before he decides to put the matter to rest and simply opts for avoiding the man until an answer either magically appears to him or the problem dissipates.  
Sadly, however, neither happens, and just as sadly, Horatio finds it more difficult to avoid the prince’s presence than he thought it would be. If he didn’t know any better, Horatio would say that the prince is seeking out his presence. For it becomes more and more often that prince Hamlet is sitting in the library, scanning through book after book, right where Horatio has been studying the day before, as if waiting for him to return to the same seat today – which Horatio refuses to do. The habit and near presence of the prince is so irritating to him though that he soon flees the library to find other places to study. His rooms aren’t an option, for every time that he runs into his landlord, the man wants to talk to him about selling the place and Horatio tries to avoid that talk because as much as he hates his rooms, he cannot afford to be thrown out at the moment and that is where things are inevitably heading. The later his landlord lets him know, the better, for he has a three week notice period before having to leave once told to.  
Every other place Horatio seeks out to study, however, proves either inadequate or soon occupied by one prince Hamlet, crowned stalker of Denmark. In the outdoor spaces Horatio thinks it innocent enough, but when he finds prince Hamlet lying stretched out across four chairs in the common room of the students’ debate society reading with his head hanging off a chair and the book held above his head the day after Horatio first goes there to study, he grows suspicious. Eventually, Horatio only has one last place in which he can think that prince Hamlet apparently hasn’t found yet – and even there his luck comes to an end soon. He is wandering the university’s greenhouse in peace for the tenth day in a row, quietly reciting Vergil as he tries to memorise 40 verses for an upcoming lecture, when he catches a movement out of the corner of an eye and stops dead. He looks about just quickly enough to see the movement of someone hurriedly hiding behind some bushes, but not quickly enough to be able to make out anything about the person. He frowns, strides forward and quickly passes the space between him and the bushes, surrounding them and coming to a stop when he sees a figure cowering between the branches of one of the plants. Horatio blinks, speechless.  
“Before you ask,” prince Hamlet says, beaming. “I am pretending to be a bush.”  
Horatio just keeps on staring. He doesn’t know what to say or how to react and he is awfully unsure what social protocol demands of him in this situation.  
“It is just that I woke up this morning wondering how plants might feel and as I could not find an answer to my musing, I decided to follow the modern philosophical way of experiencing the nature of a thing by attempting to get as close to it in being as possible.”  
Horatio still doesn’t react. A thousand thoughts are flooding his mind, a hundred emotions battling for dominance.  
“And so,” prince Hamlet concludes. “I felt that the greenhouse was the best place to start. Wouldn’t you think?”  
The battle of emotions clouding Horatio’s mind abruptly comes to an end and there is a clear winner: annoyance. And with it wins the one of the thousand thoughts that has been shouting the longest and the loudest. Horatio opens his mouth and promptly lets it out. “My lord, are you following me?”  
The following moment in which Hamlet regards him with a blank expression seems to stretch into eternity. Then, finally, a smile stretches across his features and it is so bright that Horatio has to stop himself from smiling back. “Are you a plant, Horatio? For if you are, pretending to be you would surely prove more interesting than this...”  
Horatio has had enough. In this moment he cares not for politeness and appropriate conduct. He simply turns around, leaves the prince as he is and makes back for the other side of the greenhouse where his studies are lain out on the ground for him to read. Prince Hamlet, however, will have none of it and springs to his feet to follow him as Horatio only notices when he has already reached his papers and brings them back into order to pack his things up.  
“Where are you going?” the prince asks curiously.  
“Some other place,” is all Horatio will tell him. “I would hate to interfere with Your Highness’s attempt at studying the nature of plants.” 

The hum Hamlet lets out sounds somewhat disapproving, but Horatio couldn’t care less. He has had enough of this. It is just when he has gathered all his papers and gotten to his feet again that the prince’s voice interrupts his leave.  
“Very considerate, Horatio, fairly well – before you go, one question if you will. Pray tell, which berries are poisonous around here?”  
Horatio is standing deadly still at that, a feeling of dread is beginning to gather in the pit of his stomach as he very carefully says, his back still to the prince, “All of them, except the green ones – they are hallucinogens.”  
“Oh,” the prince lets out a small laugh. “Well, I suppose that this is what the Germans call _Glück im Unglück_ then!”  
Horatio turns around now and the horror must be written all over his face because Hamlet laughs at the sight of him and is quick to reassure him. “Oh wow it’s alright! It could _not_ have been the green ones after all! And it’s not the first time I’m on hallucinogens, I won’t die!”  
Horatio frowns and somehow it makes Hamlet laugh even harder. “You look awfully disapproving, Horatio. What is the matter?”  
Horatio’s frown deepens. “My lord, I do not wish to have any knowledge of your experience with drugs.”  
Hamlet grins. “Well, I’m afraid there’s no getting around it now. I will need somebody to look after me in this state so that I don’t wander off thinking it is a wonderful idea to eat any more of any of these berries – and you are the only one here.”  
Horatio recoils. “Oh no, there is _no_ way we are staying here with you in this condition. I am taking you to the infirmary!”  
He turns to get going, but realises quickly that Hamlet isn’t following him. Instead he has let himself drop to the floor and is lying on his back, staring up at the ceiling.  
“My lord?” he asks, worry seeping into his voice.  
Hamlet clicks his tongue unhappily. “We’ll have to work on that.”  
“Work? On what, my lord?”  
“That,” he say, looking up at Horatio. “’My lord...’”  
Horatio is growing more irritated by the second. “Well, how would you have me regard you, my lord?”  
The prince smiles. “Just ‘Hamlet.’”  
“I can’t do that, my lord.”  
Hamlet sighs. “Of course not.” And before Horatio can ask what he means, he speaks on. “Well, we cannot go to the infirmary. The doctor there will think that I have attempted to poison myself and write to my parents and under no circumstances will I let _that_ happen again.”  
Horatio shakes his head in confusion. “Why would he think that?”  
But prince Hamlet doesn’t answer, he just looks at him and as the full extent of what he has said sinks in, Horatio follows a sudden urge to sit down next to the prince where he is standing.  
“Well, but we still cannot stay here. Someone might come in any minute and as much as I doubt they would care about your misconduct, I am sure the university will not hesitate to expel me for my neglected assistance in the form of not taking you to the infirmary after you ate berries from some bush that neither of us knows the full potential of.”  
Hamlet cocks his head. “A fair enough point. Where shall we go then? Your chambers?”  
The thought leaves Horatio feeling utterly uncomfortable. “Out of the question. What about your chambers?” The thought is not a lot more pleasant, but seems to make more sense.  
“No way. Too many students scattered around the hallways on the way and around there.”  
“Well, if we make it to them before you start feeling the berries’ effects...”  
Hamlet chuckles lightly. “I’m afraid it’s a little late for that.”  
Horatio nearly groans in frustration. This is not how he had wanted his afternoon to go.  
“What is wrong with your chambers?” Hamlet curiously asks and Horatio cannot suppress a sigh.  
“Several things, my lord. For one, they aren’t exactly chambers, it is rather a room. Secondly, I am currently avoiding my landlord and if he finds me attending to a fellow student who happens to be high on hallucinogens he will surely take it as reason enough to throw me out without a three week notice period. But most of all, the place is in a horrible condition and I am afraid that should my rooms collapse onto the crowned prince of Denmark and kill him, I will surely go to hell for it, or at least my family’s good name will be ruined for all of eternity.”  
Hamlet laughs so loudly and so hard at that that Horatio begins to worry whether it is a side effect from the berries for a frightening minute, but he eventually comes back to himself, wiping tears from the corners of his eyes and grinning at Horatio in a somewhat insane fashion that frightens Horatio in an entirely different way.  
“Well then, I fear, we will have to stay here after all,” the prince declares. “The good news is that hardly anyone ever comes in here so you should be rather safe from being expelled. Seriously, this place is as secluded a place as you can find at university – it took me over a week to figure out you were hiding here.”  
Horatio who has admitted defeat and been shifting on the floor to sit more comfortable, starts and nearly tips over when he hears this. “So you _have_ been following me!”  
Hamlet looks surprised to realise that he has said aloud what he has just said for a moment, but then a lopsided smile breaks out over his face again. “Oops. Well, it seems that I must confess.”  
“May one inquire what has driven you to follow me around then, my lord?”  
The prince hums. “That wholly depends. May one inquire why you have been avoiding my presence, good Horatio?”  
Horatio is, again, rendered speechless. He finds that he has no good answer at hand, none that wouldn’t put him in an uncomfortable situation of revealing the queerness of his personal feelings anyway. So he doesn’t answer, but instead settles down and unfolds his papers again, rearranging them on the floor before him. “I will be using the time to study then, my lord. You better stay right where you are so I can have a watch over you. We should also make sure that you stay sufficiently hydrated.”  
Hamlet smiles absent-mindedly. “Don’t you mind me, Horatio. And please be lenient should I not listen to you, but the fairies are telling such interesting stories and I find it difficult enough as it is to listen to all of them at the same time.”  
Horatio sighs and turns to his studies, half an eye on the prince who seems to be seeing the sweetest dreams come true underneath the ceiling of the greenhouse as he smiles and coos.

It is half an hour or so later, Horatio is losing the sense of time in the dull light within the greenhouse, that prince Hamlet falls very silent next to him and Horatio looks up from his readings to check on him. “Are you alright, my lord?”  
Hamlet’s facial expression is blank. “And you, my good Horatio?” he responds in the same tone.  
Horatio frowns. “Please do not call me that, my lord.”  
Some emotion passes over Hamlet’s features and he looks up at him with a small smile back in place. “What then, my good Horatio?”  
Horatio glares. “That. I’m not _your_ good Horatio.”  
“No?” The prince seems genuinely surprised. “Well, strictly speaking, I am not _your_ lord either, am I?”  
Horatio furrows his brow. “I suppose not, my lord.”  
“And yet you call me so.”  
“It’s what custom wants.”  
“What?” Hamlet laughs. “That I am above you in hierarchy, but may not have a word in how you regard me?”  
“So it seems, my lord.”  
The prince sighs heavily. “Well, my good Horatio, it only seems fair to me that at least I may in return regard you as I please, but I do not wish to upset you so I shall try to refrain from it for your sake.”  
“Thank you—“ _my lord._ He has to bite his tongue to not say it. Hamlet seems pleased.  
“I take it then that you are alright?”  
The prince closes his eyes and smiles. “I feel light as a feather, Horatio, and in fact I thought for a moment that I must be flying. It was a beautiful sensation that, for a few moments, but then I felt that I was too light, too little, that I was dissipating, was made of nothing, that I was fading – or flying away, and nothing could hold me, and it became quite frightening...!” The smile has died on his lips and he is staring wide-eyed at Horatio. “Will you ground me, Horatio?” he whispers and Horatio cannot help himself, there is that tug again from somewhere within him and he feels helpless, but something within him is terribly sure of what to do and before he know what happens, his hand has already reached out and he firmly places it on the prince’s shoulder, pressing it down into the ground lightly, but steadily. And Hamlet smiles and closes his eyes again and a warmth fills Horatio that should be more unsettling than it is.

The hours pass with Hamlet muttering the silliest things to him, asking a question about what Horatio is reading once or twice, at times he asks Horatio to read out loud and Horatio complies and listens to the prince’s comments that are sometimes utterly senseless, sometimes surprisingly insightful and most of the time more entertaining than Horatio would openly admit. A few minutes into such a session of Horatio reading and Hamlet commenting, Hamlet suddenly silences Horatio by putting a hand onto his knee. Horatio immediately falls silent at the sensation and very nearly gasps as the contact sends a spark up his leg. He shakes his head to clear his mind and looks up. “What is it, my lord?”  
“Have you ever been in love, Horatio?”  
Horatio isn’t sure how to respond. It seems an awfully personal question, but before he can do so much as attempt to find the right words, Hamlet continues to speak and it occurs to Horatio that perhaps it had been a rhetorical question.  
“There is this girl back at home... She is very dear to me. I am afraid, though, that I will break her heart. I love her, dearly, or I have, when we were very young. Really, I hardly knew what love could mean in those days, but it made my love for her no less true, you see, in what it was back then. And I think she was the first to own my heart in such a way. But I fear that I have never held her quite as dear as she still holds me. And I fear that I have yet not ever loved to the truest and fullest extent... I will surely be expected to marry her one day. I liked to think I must not ever marry in the past years, to think that a king can do as he pleases, but you see, I am the last of my line, and a king must have a queen and offspring if there is no one else to pass the line on... Anyway, this girl – Ophelia is her name – Ophelia, she is still dear to me, I will always hold her in my heart, but I will never love her as much as she deserves. And it breaks my heart to think how unhappy it will make her the day that she has to realise, and surely that day will come, Horatio, for I fear that I will lose my heart to another.” At that he looks up to Horatio again. “It is quite frustrating a situation, that. I had forsworn myself to love – not by my mind, soul, body, but by my heart, you see. I thought that it would prove easier to return to Elsinore one day this way, and love Ophelia as best I can. But at times it happens that you set yourself such a goal, only for your eyes to fall upon a person and for you to realise, aahh, and there is the one who will ruin all good intentions, no matter what. Do you know that feeling, Horatio?”  
Horatio swallows. “Well, my lord... I suppose... Well, I think that in an abstract way I do.”  
Hamlet studies his face carefully for a long moment before looking back to the ceiling. “Well, perhaps that is better than to concretely know it,” he says, and then on a completely unrelated note he continues, “Have you read the notes I left in your volume of Aristophanes?”  
Horatio blushes so fiercely at the mention that he fully forgets to be puzzled by the sudden change of topic. “I – I have, my lord.”  
Hamlet smiles an awfully knowing smile. “Did you like them?”  
Horatio coughs self-consciously. “I found them widely entertaining and in many points agreeable, my lord.”  
Hamlet grins. “Good.”  
“At times quite particular in choice of words,” Horatio points out.  
Hamlet squints at him. “Don’t you think that Aristophanes is so as well a lot of times though? I thought it only fitting really.”  
Horatio smiles and inclines his head in agreement. “Perhaps you are most right, my lord.”  
“Most definitely I am,” Hamlet mutters, closing his eyes again.  
“I just marvelled at where a prince would learn such expressions, that is all.”  
Hamlet grins his broadest grin yet. “A prince knows his ways to learn what he is curious about. And since arriving in Wittenberg even more than before, I have learned from the best. And believe me, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are the best in all such aspects.”  
Horatio blushes deeply and decides not to think too much about the implications of that as he mutters, “I have no doubt they are, my lord.”  
“Nay,” Hamlet sighs. “They are awfully daft at times and more talkative than is good for them, and surely, they report at least half of all the words I ever speak on to the court, but they do know which half to leave out, and they are good men, really.” He cracks one eye open. “I do feel a demand for more sensible company every once in a while though. It isn’t the most pleasant thing to mind even half my words in the presence of my closest companions.”  
“I imagine not,” Horatio agrees.  
“And imagine you must,” Hamlet says. “You hesitate not to say aloud every word on your mind, it seems.”  
“Nay, good prince,” Horatio laughs. “That is but half the truth. Were I to speak every word on my mind, I fear I would spend most of the hours in a day talking. I simply have a tendency to utter things aloud that it would be better for my health and future I kept to myself.”  
“Then why do you utter them?”  
“Well, my lord, I fear it would be worse for my sanity to keep them to myself than it is for my health and future to make them be heard... But truly, perhaps it is some terrible form of pride. I fear it is my worst habitude.”  
Hamlet smirks. “Nay, there must be some other naughtiness that we can coax out of you.”  
“My lord, you’d be the first to be successful.”  
Hamlet grins. “That challenge I readily accept.”  
Horatio realises too late his mistake. “My lord, I meant not—“  
But Hamlet is already back to his hallucinations, laughing at the shape of a nearby plant and Horatio gives up. He only hopes that Hamlet will have forgotten this part of their conversation when his trip is over. 

Thrice Hamlet tries to crawl off and Horatio has to sternly demand that he come back so that he doesn’t get lost in the greenhouse or try to eat some berries even more poisonous than what he has had. It slowly grows dark around them and Horatio lights a single candle he carries with himself to still be able to read. At least it doesn’t get too cold inside the greenhouse, but he does hope that prince Hamlet’s high will come to its end soon or they will be sitting in here all night, and Horatio should really get some sleep. He hasn’t been having enough lately, what with all the creeping out of his room in the early morning hours and only returning late at night as to not run into his landlord. It is when Horatio is caught in that worrisome thought that Hamlet suddenly calls out. “Horatio, look!”  
And although the prince has called out the same phrase a dozen times before and Horatio has looked up to find him fascinated by something only he can see, Horatio looks up yet again, and this time he does see what the prince means. “I see them too, my lord.”  
A hundred fireflies are rising from the plants into the air around them and filling the space with a somewhat magical glow.  
“What, Horatio, you mean to say that of all things I have seen today, _this_ is the one that is really happening?” Hamlet laughs and sits up. “Wow, what a lucky day I am having...”  
They sit in a surprisingly companionable silence for many minutes, just watching the display of the glowing bugs floating through the air around them. Horatio’s left hand is still on Hamlet’s shoulder where it has, with short interruptions, stayed since Hamlet asked him to ground him, and Hamlet’s left hand is still on Horatio’s knee as they sit closely next to each other facing different directions. Horatio feels that strange tug inside his body again, deep at his core, but this time it has a direction and it seems to pull him towards the prince and Horatio takes a shaky breath as he suddenly has an idea of what it might be and breathing in, he smells the faint scent of oak wood and ink again and becomes highly aware of how warm Hamlet is next to him and how cold he is from sitting in one place for hours – and before he can fight it, that tug manifests somewhere between where his heart and where his stomach is and he thinks that he understands something that Hamlet has said earlier, but he isn’t sure what is was... It is in this moment that Hamlet turns his head around to him and says something right into his ear and Horatio cannot help the shiver that runs down his back and it takes him a moment before he becomes aware of what the prince has said.  
“I think the effect of the berries has fully worn off. By any means, I imagine it is time we leave this place before someone locks us in for the night.”  
They help each other to their feet, awkwardly taking a few steps to wake up their tired limps that have gotten used to being in one position for too long. When their hands let go from where they have been set for several hours Horatio is left feeling strangely cold again and that tugging within him turns into a strangely fierce heat and the mixture of the two sensations makes Horatio dizzy as they stagger out of the greenhouse.  
Standing in front of the building, Hamlet looks around and asks whether Horatio will join him for a late trip to the kitchen as they have missed out on lunch and his tone is annoyingly conversational, but there is also a great deal of care barely contained by the nonchalance and Horatio’s dizziness is getting worse and Hamlet must see is for he doesn’t object as Horatio politely declines the invite.  
“Very well. As you wish,” he says. “But I will have to make it up to you some time. You spent an entire afternoon and evening looking after me because of my carelessness – thank you. And I must apologise. I will do my best to look for a way to make it up to you if you will let me.”  
A part of Horatio wants to refuse, to say that Hamlet mustn’t and that they can forget it and never have to spend such an uncomfortable amount of time in each other’s presence again, but the tug is back and his mind is flooded by all the endearing, funny, kind and clever things the prince has said today – and oh, he really needs to sleep, he doesn’t have the energy to argue – so he only inclines his head.  
“But another time,” Hamlet is quick to say. “I see you need your sleep. We will see. Thank you for your compassion for now, Horatio. And a sweet night.”  
There is a tense moment in which they lean a little towards each other, not sure how to say goodbye, but then Hamlet opts for passing by him and patting his back briefly, but gently, and they part.  
Horatio isn’t sure how he made it home that night, but when he wakes up the next morning he is in his bed in his room and he groans into his pillow as the first thing he notices is that the tug in his lower chest is still very much there and shows no sign of passing or even easing, and he really wants to hate prince Hamlet for it.


	2. Adventures Of All Kinds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which friendship blooms and a feeling blossoms. In which Hamlet's moods are as uncontrollable as ever and Horatio grows more and more flustered over it all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guyyyyys, hi! Hope you liked the first chapter! Here's the next one. Things are finally developping more in this one. I spare a lot of detail because I wanted to be fairly accurate, but couldn't be bothered to do enough research to do historical accuracy - sorryyyy. Well, I hope you still like it. Reviews and kudos are always appreciated. Stay safe, healthy and sane!

“Remind me. Why are we climbing this fence?”   
It is a crisp morning, the chill of the fog still billowing about the Elbe not helped by the clear sky slowly turning grey as sunrise creeps closer. It will be a sunny day, but right now Horatio is shivering in his coat and it has definitely, he tells himself, more to do with the cool morning air than with the feeling of Hamlet’s warm breath in his neck as Horatio lowers himself to the ground right next to him on the other side of the fence. As he turns around, Hamlet is still standing awfully close to him, that stupidly intoxicating grin plastered onto his face, and the more pressing question on Horatio’s mind is, why has he let himself be talked into this _again?_   
“Because,” Hamlet answers his original question. “The really good things in life don’t come to us without us overcoming some obstacles.” And he grabs Horatio by the hand – Horatio really needs to ask him to stop doing that – and pulls him on.   
Several weeks have passed since their evening in the greenhouse and in his attempt to “make it up to him,” as he says, Hamlet has dragged Horatio to the most impossible places in the most ungodly of hours. Many of those places have been astonishing and exciting and wonderful, and Horatio tells himself that that is the reason he still lets himself be dragged along although he has said to Hamlet several times that his debt to Horatio is surely repaid by now – but the prince ignores him and comes up with more surprising places to go each time he tells Horatio to meet him somewhere else in the earliest hours of the morning or the latest hours of the night. Perhaps Horatio also comes every time because it gives him somewhere to be away from his room where his landlord has been leaving notes for him that they need to talk that Horatio has deliberately been ignoring...   
They climb another three fences and then up the most brittle of ladders and narrowest of stairs before they reach the place Hamlet has declared their goal today. They come to stop on the flat roof of a simple house. Considering just how simple it is, Horatio has trouble seeing why they went to such lengths to get here. But at his sceptical look, Hamlet clicks his tongue and holds up the index finger of one hand as if to say, _Just wait, you haven’t seen it yet!_   
And he proves right, as he leads Horatio to the edge of the roof and down onto a small but steady canopy and now Horatio can see why they are here.   
In the light of the sun that is just beginning to leak into the sky behind them, they can look down onto the city centre. Down in the streets before them Horatio can see the two smaller city rivers crossing and he can see the fish market unfolding around them, coming to life with the first people making their way through the streets. The colours and sounds of the lively market hadn’t been noticeable from where they had stood a minute ago, but now they can take everything in in all its colours, and the sun begins to warmly shine onto their backs, giving Horatio an excuse for the warmth that fills him as he looks over to Hamlet who looks absolutely delighted at Horatio’s positive reaction.   
“This is beautiful,” Horatio breathes honestly. “I hadn’t even notices we were heading here. The way up to this place was so very confusing we could have been heading anywhere.”   
Hamlet nods enthusiastically. “It is the only way up to this place. Took me a very drunken night and the strong urge to follow a smell of fish to find it.”   
“Very strong indeed if you have climbed all these obstacles with alcohol in your blood,” Horatio muses.   
“How dost thou still underestimate my unrelenting ways?” Hamlet teases, and the term of endearment slips so seamlessly from his mouth that Horatio hardly even blushes at it this time. He would like to claim that he has gotten used to it, but it still makes him uneasy to hear it every time. He is not sure when the prince has started using it. He doesn’t always use it, just occasionally weaves it into conversation as if it is the most natural thing in the world and Horatio hates himself for hating it more and more when the prince _doesn’t_ use it... In turn, Horatio has been minimising his use of Hamlet’s title. It is simply easier to rather call him simply “Hamlet” instead of “my lord” than to use the formal term and listen to Hamlet’s complaints every time he does – when they’re alone anyway. In company of others he makes sure to be as formal as is appropriate, even before Rosencrantz and Guildenstern who are everything but formal and only call Hamlet “my lord” when they mean to tease him, it seems. Horatio prefers being alone with Hamlet though. And he tells himself that it is because it’s easier. There is no expectation, nothing to do wrong, Hamlet is just Hamlet, with his strange ways and ideas and his habit of taking up a lot of Horatio’s time and of taking him by the hand and dragging him somewhere without asking, but it’s easier than when there are other people and it somehow reminds Horatio that this is _prince_ Hamlet, _the goddamn crowned prince of goddamn Denmark_ \- he prefers not to think about it.   
“Anyway,” said prince of Denmark interrupts his train of thought. “This isn’t even the best thing yet. Let me present to you the best thing about this place!”   
And he waves for Horatio to follow him down onto another roof, lower than the canopy they have been sitting on and halfway down a few improvised steps onto what seems to be an abandoned, rather instable balcony not far above a few market stalls that sell freshly fried fish and fresh pies and other delicious looking things. And Hamlet grabs a fishing rod that is leaning against the wall of the house that Horatio hadn’t even noticed so far and he leans over the railing of the balcony and – Horatio isn’t sure how he does it until he notices that the fishing rod must somehow have been modified to serve this purpose, but it isn’t much later that they are climbing back up to where they were sitting before and now they sit with the rising sun in their backs, watching the beauty of the fish market unfold underneath them and sharing a freshly baked fish pie that the salesman down at his stall hasn’t even noticed they have stolen and it is one of the, if not the most perfect of all moments that Horatio has ever experienced in Wittenberg and he marvels at how very strange it is. He and Hamlet, prince of Denmark, sitting on a flat roof in Wittenberg, sharing stolen pie, the most idyllic sight at their feet hanging off the roof as the day gets comfortably warm. There is a moment within this peaceful scene when a thought reaches out from the back of Horatio’s mind into his consciousness and he thinks, for a moment, that this is the kind of place a man like Hamlet ought to take a girl he likes to impress to woo her – but that thought seems little useful to him and therefore he sends it back to the back of his mind where it belongs.  
It is perhaps an hour later or so when the fish market starts to close down for the day and the fog from the Elbe has fully dissipated that a sentiment of departure comes over them and they slowly begin to make their way down from where they’ve come. They are climbing over the first of the four fences as Horatio takes heart and says, “This was truly wonderful, Hamlet. I should think that it is by now more than enough to repay for the half day I dedicated to you.”   
He meets Hamlet face to face when he comes down on the other side of the face and the prince is smiling at him, shrugs, and simply says, “Very well. Then it is time for me to see if I can coax out of you some other naughtiness than your frankness towards your superiors, don’t you think?” And before Horatio can say anything he has turned around and already makes to climb the next fence. “It will be great fun, believe me! I already have a couple of things in mind!”   
And Horatio somehow doesn’t find it in himself to object as he climbs after the prince. He will always have time to object later when he knows exactly what it is that Hamlet has planned, he tells himself, and ignores the tug in his chest that turns into a nervous flutter.

*******************

It is a few more weeks and Horatio is back on his bench in the sun next to the big old chestnut tree, just this time he isn’t alone. He has interrupted his reading to incredulously watch Hamlet as he topples over with laughter and falls from the bench after he has been dramatically reading out loud from an assigned piece of reading he evidently dislikes, only to be hit in the head by a chestnut falling from the tree shortly followed by a second chestnut hitting the book. Hamlet hysterically tries to explain to Horatio how it is a clear show of the universe disapproving of this reading as much as he does while he still can’t stop laughing and the people passing by give them perturbed looks.   
“The things you find amusing astound me sometimes,” Horatio mutters, but a small smiles comes over his lips as Hamlet climbs back onto the bench next to him and describes the scene of how he will tell their professor in their upcoming lecture that he could simply not read the entirety of the assigned reading because the universe was, rightfully, against it and acting against the universe came with the danger of being struck dead by chestnuts, and he begs for Horatio to play a diligent witness to the fact that the danger is real. Soon, Horatio is laughing alongside him and they are drawing up the entire scene in their mind. This goes on for a while until Horatio says, “I hope you are aware that I will not actually stand up in lecture to testify to the universe’s disapproval.”   
Hamlet pouts. “Oh, come now Horatio, why not? The lecturer could not possibly turn down my logic if I had his best and most diligent student defending me!”   
Horatio blushes a little. “I do not consider myself the best and most diligent student of this class, and also I cannot allow myself such demeanour, however easy it may be for you, I would get in trouble!”   
Hamlet frowns. “For a man whose demeanour towards nobility is oft considered daring and presumptuous, you are at times very quick to use your social status as an excuse to behave according to any rule or protocol.”   
Horatio shrugs and smiles innocently. “It is not I who is to blame for the double standards of this system. I simply use them to my greatest possible advantage.”   
Hamlet smiles at that. “So brilliant a mind, and yet you do not believe yourself to be the brightest student in our lectures. What wrong has been done to thy confidence, Horatio?”   
Horatio shrugs mildly and rather looks back to his book than at the prince. “I think you will find that arrogance is not a naughtiness that you can coax out of me, sweet prince. I find modesty an important virtue.”   
Hamlet hums. “Either that or you think too lowly of yourself – which I would think to be a habit no less bad than arrogance in your case... Art thou simply humble for politeness’ sake or canst thou truly not see the beauty of thy own mind, Horatio?”   
Horatio is taken aback by the genuine care in Hamlet’s expression and for a moment he is at a loss of words. Before he has reorganised his thoughts enough to respond, however, they are interrupted by Rosencrantz and Guildenstern who barge between them with no care for what had been a private conversation.   
“Alright, we’re ready – shall we?” Rosencrantz says to Hamlet, and Guildenstern joins from the other side.   
“We should hurry. The best seats at the theatre will be taken otherwise!”   
Hamlet looks annoyed for a second and then glances back at Horatio with a softer expression. Horatio, however, is quick to reassure. “Don’t worry about me, my lord, I have to head off anyway. I hope to meet a potential landlady by the river who will hopefully let her attic to me at an affordable price.”   
“Ah, a potential new _landlady,_ we see!” Rosencrantz winks. “If you succeed to woo her, Horatio, the place will surely become more affordable than otherwise!”   
Horatio makes a face and clears his throat uncomfortably. “She is a widow at the age of 56 so I don’t believe that will better my chances.”   
“Oh, you never know,” Guildenstern jokes and he and Rosencrantz cackle loudly. Hamlet has been watching the whole exchange with a pensive look upon his face.   
“Ros, Guil, why don’t you go ahead?” he says without looking at them now. “I will be with you in a few minutes.”   
The two lords fall silent and share a meaningful look, but comply and soon it is only him and Hamlet again and he gathers his belongings and stuffs them into his satchel and makes to get up as Hamlet’s hand on his arm pulls him back down, and as always when Hamlet touches him he freezes in his place as a spark runs from the point of contact to his chest and back.   
“I know that you are quite desperately looking for a place to stay, Horatio,” Hamlet says quietly, seriously. “And I am sure that you will be quick to say no to what I offer now, but consider it an open offer anyway. My chambers are the most luxurious the university has to offer and as it happens they come with their own smaller room for a manservant. Now, I have been insisting on that room to stay empty as I have no need nor desire for a manservant or any attendant with me in Wittenberg, I gladly attend to my own needs. I would, however, be more than ready to share this room with a friend in need of accommodation, and as the court pays for the entire place, I am sure you will find the cost far easier on your purse than anything else you can find in Wittenberg. As it is, a lot of students share their chambers at Wittenberg – take Rosencrantz and Guildenstern for example – and as glad as I am not to have to share with any stranger that is unsympathetic of my moods, so silly do I feel for having the best chambers all of Wittenberg has to offer all to myself. Therefore, Horatio, feel free to be my guest should you face the need or simply feel inclined to.”   
Horatio sits in shock for a long moment from such an elaborate speech. A nervous feeling is growing within him as he thinks on it and turns word for word over in his mind. He can on the spot think of a hundred good reasons why he shouldn’t live with Hamlet – the tugging feeling in his chest intensifying at the thought of it being one of the many he cannot even say to Hamlet out loud – and yet... But no, he knows what his answer must be just as well as Hamlet knows it and therefore he is rather calm when his eyes meet the prince’s. “Thank you. But I think not, my lord. I am not yet in need so desperately that I would have to beg a friend for charity, and I shall refrain from it as long as I can – interpret it as part of my incorrigible pride, if you will, but believe me that I appreciate the gesture.”   
There is a gleam behind Hamlet’s eyes as he smiles, not surprised at all, and nods in acknowledgment. Their ways parts for the day without another word of it, and Horatio abandons the thought to the back of his mind with all the other things he tries not to think too much about – like the way Hamlet had looked at him when he spoke of the beauty of his mind, and the way his heart had missed a beat in that moment.

*******************

Hamlet soon spends time with Horatio more regularly than just for their nightly adventures or Hamlet’s attempts at dragging Horatio out to the pubs or to student parties with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. They also spend a good amount of time studying together and discussing matters of philosophy and life outside of classes. Horatio, in time, finds that the prince’s presence is very enjoyable to him and were it not for the rapidity with which Hamlet’s moods can change, for some of his more annoying habits and for the insistent tugging in Horatio’s chest that only becomes stronger with time... – well, were it not for those things then Horatio would be very happy to spend all his time with Hamlet. Not that these things stop Hamlet from spending very nearly all his time with him. Horatio hardly notices it happening and only realises how truly inseparable he and the prince have grown when one day a student he has never exchanged a word with stops him in a hallway to ask for Hamlet’s whereabouts. The matter isn’t helped by the fact that Horatio immediately produces the correct answer. He moves the revelation around in his mind the following days, unsure how to feel about it, but the gravity of just how close he and the prince have grown only really sinks in when a few days later even Rosencrantz and Guildenstern turn to him when they know not where to find their comrade.  
Horatio thinks about bringing it up with Hamlet, but what should he say? And indeed, wouldn’t Hamlet find it strangest that Horatio is so uncomfortable with their close friendship? And it is strange that it unsettles him so... It is just that Horatio soon finds that something within him is calmer when he knows where the prince is, even calmer when he is around him, and that something starts being uneasy when he doesn’t know where Hamlet is or when Hamlet isn’t close and he doesn’t like it, he shouldn’t feel this way, but that tugging in his chest is turning into more of a steady pull with each day that he spends more and more time with Hamlet and he simply cannot help it.   
He slowly gets used to Hamlet’s moods.   
His mischief is the most common one that is by strangers often mistaken for evil, but Hamlet pokes fun at everyone who let himself be irritated by his words or actions.   
Then there is Hamlet’s restlessness, when he feels that he has to outrun his thoughts and his legs carry him to the most impossible places, as far away from everything and everyone he knows as possible, except from Horatio it seems.   
There also is a playful Hamlet that Horatio is sure could convince him to do everything and therefore tries carefully to keep away from for his ideas are foolish at best, bordering on dangerous often enough.   
However, there is also a lot of darkness on Hamlet’s mind and sometimes it breaks through or clouds everything happy around him in blackness and when Hamlet is caught in one of these moods, he says horrible things and gets too obsessed with the most negative of philosophies. Horatio makes sure to stay by his side in such moments, with a philosophical counterargument and an example for the good in the world at hand and with careful balance more often than not Horatio succeeds to reassure the prince. Many times Hamlet just needs him to listen, and listen he does, careful not to make promises of things getting better and not to tell Hamlet that things are not as bad as they seem because there is nothing Hamlet loathes to hear more when in a bad mood. And Horatio doesn’t give promises that he cannot keep. So he just sits and listens and after a while, Hamlet reaches out and Horatio readily takes his hand – because damn the fluttering in his lower chest, he will do whatever he can for Hamlet and put his personal feelings aside – and the prince soon calms. Horatio wishes, when he feels Hamlet’s hands shake between his, that he would not have to see this, but he is glad that Hamlet isn’t alone with his thoughts in those moments because there is a lose anxiety in his heart at the thought of what Hamlet might do if there were nobody to reach out to and he tries not to think about it...   
Sometimes, Hamlet turns very serious and deeply pensive and philosophical and speaks of the things that matter in life and Horatio can only listen in wonder and he is not sure how he likes this mood because such phases usually end with Hamlet giving him very long and very strange looks that leave him utterly flustered.   
The mood that Horatio dislikes most in Hamlet, however, is his anger. In one moment the picking of a fight is but a game to Hamlet, and in the next he is violent with rage and Horatio has to drag him out of a tavern by the arm and pull him away from the people staring to where it is only the two of them in fresh air before the prince calms down again and suddenly starts to rant about one thesis or another they have been discussing in class, but hadn’t finished discussing yet. That is what Horatio does when he is fast enough. Sometimes he doesn’t notice the moment the tides change and then he is dragging a bruised and bleeding Hamlet away from the scene of a fight. He considers himself lucky that Hamlet is a good fighter because he is usually the one who gets out of a fight with only mild injuries, but really perhaps it isn’t lucky at all for perhaps Hamlet would pick less fights if the risk were higher for him. That is unlikely though, he realises one day. Hamlet fights without care for his health and would probably fight just as many people if he were the worst of fighters. Horatio finds that the best way to keep him safe is to nip his fighting in the bud. It is with that sentiment in mind that Horatio finds himself muttering to many a man who Hamlet is stirring up into a fight some words of Hamlet’s title and whereabouts. And more and more often this sentence in combination with a few meaningful looks is enough because most men don’t want to fight the crowned prince of Denmark once they realise who he is. This way, their evenings out in the taverns become a lot more peaceful and more to Horatio’s liking, Hamlet gets drunk and later scolds him for letting people know of his title because he prefers to be treated as everyone else and Horatio defends himself by saying that were Hamlet behaving as civilised as everyone else, Horatio wouldn’t have to remind people of his title, and Hamlet laughs at him and slings an arm around his shoulder as they stagger through the streets on their way back to university where their ways will part when each of them returns to his respective accommodation.  
Usually, that is how it goes. One night, however, Horatio is unlucky. He turns towards a particularly drunk particularly aggressive German man that Hamlet has been particularly insulting towards and politely but firmly says, “Tread carefully, my friend. You’re one insult away from starting a war.”   
What usually works rather well as a hint at Hamlet’s title has an unexpected effect on the man facing Hamlet who seems to take offense at Horatio’s interruption of their quarrel and suddenly lunges at him. Horatio barely has time to react before he stumbles backwards and his back painfully hits the bar and he raises his hands in defence a little overwhelmed, but the expected next attack fails to appear. It takes Horatio another half-second to realise that Hamlet has thrown himself between them and another second to see that Hamlet’s fighting skills are somewhat lessened by the amount of alcohol in his blood and his surprise at the turn of events and – he simply is inferior to his opponent. It doesn’t happen often, but it is happening right now and within seconds Hamlet is on the floor and the pull in Horatio’s chest turns into something ugly and he hurries to the prince’s side.

A few minutes later Horatio is supporting Hamlet’s weight as he manoeuvres them through Wittenberg’s streets towards the only place he knows to go. Hamlet is bleeding and Horatio is trying very hard not to panic.   
“Not... the infirmary,” Hamlet mumbles and Horatio huffs because he knows Hamlet’s not-to-the-infirmary-rule sufficiently well by now and never has he hated it more. But he understands it well enough and there is only one other place he can think of so here they go.   
He has to knock four times before a very sleepy Rosencrantz opens the door and Horatio silently thanks God because he had been starting to worry that the two lords might be out for the night when nobody had answered the door by the third time he knocked. Rosencrantz first blinks at them with tired eyes, and then sees the state Hamlet is in and is suddenly wide awake, opening the door fully for them to stumble inside.   
Guildenstern sits up in the single double bet that is standing against the wall as they come in – Horatio doesn’t take note of the fact that it is the only bed in the entire room and that there have evidently been two people sleeping in it just a minute ago, it doesn’t surprise him, but he has more important things to worry about right now.   
“Why is he bleeding?” Guildenstern asks with a wide-eyed look at Hamlet.   
“Because he’s an idiot,” Horatio grits out between his teeth as he carefully lowers the prince down onto a chaise longue standing on the opposite side of the room from the bed.   
“I didn’t know that idiocy caused people to spontaneously start bleeding,” Rosencrantz mutters as he kneels down next to the prince and looks at his injuries.   
“I think it’s a new phenomenon,” Horatio grunts. “Can you help him?”   
He knows that Rosencrantz has been taking a few spare classes in medicine, and he is the student with the calmest hands Horatio knows of. The lord inspects Hamlet’s injuries for another moment before glancing back at Horatio. “I should think so,” he declares. “If you could stoke the fire, we need to boil some water. Guil, we need bandages.”   
Guildenstern hurries out from underneath the covers of the bed and leaves the room through a door that seems to lead to a washing room while Horatio takes care of the fire and Rosencrantz takes a closer look at Hamlet who seems to have become more conscious again.   
“Oh, my lord, what have you done this time?” Rosencrantz mumbles to him and Hamlet has the audacity to let out a somewhat strained laugh.   
“Had to defend Horatio.”   
Horatio swivels around from where he is putting the kettle on and glares at Hamlet. “I can take care of myself!”   
Hamlet laughs again, but his laughter turns into a pained cough and Rosencrantz gives Horatio a strange look as he turns back, trying to fight down the panic and the anger bubbling inside of him.   
“Can’t risk that pretty face of yours,” Hamlet coughs and Horatio grits his teeth.   
“Dost thou respect me so little, my lord?” he asks, his back turned to the scene of Rosencrantz taking care of Hamlet. “To think of me but as a pretty face by thy side?”   
Hamlet’s reply to that seems genuinely shook. “Not at all Horatio. How canst thou think that?”   
“Well, my lord, thou thinkst to have proven thy respect by picking a fight to defend me, but truly it seems thou dost not respect me enough _not_ to pick a fight. For must I remind thee that hadst thou not sought out the quarrel tonight, there would have been no need for either of us to defend me!”   
Silence falls and he turns back around to see Hamlet seemingly at a loss of words, staring at him and just as he hesitantly opens his mouth to answer Guildenstern rushes back into the room with a pile of bandages in his arms and nobody seems more relieved than Rosencrantz as it is silently agreed that the conversation is postpones until further notice.

Time passes and Rosencrantz carefully tends to Hamlet’s injuries with Guildenstern’s help and Horatio calms down somewhat although the pull inside his chest doesn’t lessen and it is in a way so painful by now that Horatio cannot sit still, but paces in the room watching the two young lords do their work until Rosencrantz asks Guildenstern to make Horatio sit down and give him a cup of tea to drink. The tea helps everything except the tight feeling in Horatio’s chest, but it passes the time and it isn’t much later that Rosencrantz is done with what he does and Hamlet has fallen asleep on the chaise longue for a moment and Guildenstern sits down next to Horatio while Rosencrantz proceeds to wash some blood off Hamlet’s temple.   
“Are you alright?” Guildenstern asks with a kindness that Horatio has never heard from him.   
“I’m good,” Horatio responds although he doesn’t feel it at all.   
“It was good of you to bring him here,” Guildenstern carefully says and Horatio scoffs before he can stop himself.   
“I fear I didn’t know what else to do. I know not if there is any helping his moods, I have been doing my best to keep him from harm’s way, but it seems that I am powerless in this regard.”   
Guildenstern gives him a look that is outright incredulous. “Are you serious?” he asks and Horatio frowns, confused. “Horatio, you are literally the only person in the entire world with even the smallest bit of power over his moods! And it isn’t all that small a bit either.”   
Horatio seriously doubts that, but he merely shrugs. “What good is a little bit of power if it isn’t enough to stop him from putting himself in danger?”   
Guildenstern hums. “You have quite successfully been limiting the amount of brawling he gets involved in, nobody has done that before. This was a fight he picked for you and not for himself?”   
“He would have. I was just trying to stop it before it got too worse. He gets himself in the way of violence with no care for anything or anyone.”   
“Not so much anymore,” Guildenstern mutters. “I would actually say that you are in a way the manifestation of his self-preservation instinct.”   
Horatio looks up to see whether he is being mocked, but Guildenstern just smiles at him and in this moment Rosencrantz gets up from next to Hamlet.   
“He should be fine, I think. It’s probably a good sign he’s fallen asleep. Do you need any help, Horatio?” he asks.   
Horatio is about to decline, but before he can say anything, Guildenstern agrees. “Yeah, I would have that looked at.”   
Horatio blinks in confusion and Guildenstern gestures as his hands. “Your knuckles are all bruised.”   
Horatio looks down at his hands – and indeed, he had forgotten.   
Rosencrantz sighs and sits down between them to take a look at Horatio’s hands who willingly offers them to him. “Evidently you really can take of yourself,” he murmurs and Horatio prefers not to respond.

Hamlet wakes up half an hour later and he seems to be a little better. Considering the late hour, Horatio opts for leaving the prince in the care of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern and begs them kindly to have a close eye on Hamlet over night in case he does have a concussion.   
“You know,” Hamlet calls after him as he stands in the door of the lords’ chambers ready to leave, “If you lived with me, you wouldn’t have to ask someone else to look after me in such a situation and lie awake worrying all night that something may happen to me without your knowledge!”   
Rosencrantz raises a very pointed eyebrow at that and Horatio just mumbles something about a concussion and Hamlet being drunk. Guildenstern reassures him a few more times that they will take good care of Hamlet and Horatio leaves for his own room.   
As he leaves the prince behind in the care of his comrades, his heart aches and he sighs because the night has been too long and too emotionally confusing and too frightful for his nerves and a huge part of him yells at him not to leave and he doesn’t know how he convinces himself to go, finally, but he does.

*******************

To Horatio’s huge relief, Rosencrantz proves to have been right and Hamlet turns out being just fine. Horatio feels like something has changed between them after that night. The following days Hamlet is very apologetic and he holds back from brawling, and perhaps even Guildenstern was right, but Horatio finds that the possibility of that being true excites the pulling sensation in his chest way too much and he tries to forget the things Guildenstern said because his mind won’t stop overinterpreting them.   
He has other things to occupy his mind with anyway. Inevitably, he has finally run into his landlord the other night and has been informed that he will have to move out. That leaves him with three weeks to find a new place and so far his attempts have been far from successful.   
He is sitting with Hamlet in what has somehow become _their_ corner of the library when he brings up the matter with the prince again and Hamlet’s eyes sparkle in a way that makes Horatio skittish. “I suspect it may be difficult for thee to find anyone ready to let a place to thee now that word has spread of thy capacity for violence.”   
Horatio blushes. Word had indeed spread a little after the... incident at the tavern, but not as far as Hamlet keeps implying and also Horatio is far from fond of it. “I have been trying to limit the spread of word of it to a minimum. I hope thou art doing the same.”   
Hamlet bemusedly raises an eyebrow. “But why would I not spread word of thy heroism?”   
“Because,” Horatio grumbles. “First of all, it is no heroism. And also to not impede my search for a new accommodation.”   
Hamlet smirks. “But that would not serve my purposes as I still wish for thee to accept my offer of moving into my sufficient chambers.”   
Horatio frowns. “Well then I hope thou wouldst do it in respect of my wishes to both not be known as a brute and find a place to stay before I end up having to sleep in the streets.”   
He turns back to his studies and reads in peace for a few minutes until he is interrupted by Hamlet’s hand that is carefully placed on top of the book he is reading. Horatio looks up in surprise and finds Hamlet staring at him with a very serious expression.   
“Thou must know, Horatio, that I am awfully fond of thee.”   
Horatio is struck speechless by that alone, but Hamlet, it seems, is far from done.   
“In fact, thou art the person I hold dearest in my heart in all of Wittenberg – I dare say in the entire world. Do not let that frighten thee, my good Horatio, it is just that I must say it out loud for I fear that thou dost not truly understand it or will not believe me otherwise, but this is true. I have the greatest respect for thee and have never meant to show anything but, save perhaps my fondness as best I can. It is no charity that I tender to thee in extending an offer of a space that it is very important for me to have to myself and none but myself and perhaps those that I trust most utterly. And the last thing I would seek to do is to offend thee with an offer of what seems like charity. I doubt not that thou canst fend for thyself; it is simply that I feel an urge as of late to fend not alone, but with thee by my side, and by thy side at any cost against whatever thou must face. And, my dearest Horatio, I make the offer of sharing my current home with thee out of love, not out of wrong magnanimity. I would readily accept the smaller half of any space in the world only to share it with thee and I do not say that light-heartedly and I would not wish for thee to feel obliged to share a space with me or feel anything but at home by my side, everywhere. Now, I simply extend that offer to my rooms. I thought not that thou wouldst think my offer to be a show of little respect towards thee because to me, Horatio, there is no difference between us, and I would be surprised to find that thy love makes a difference where mine does surely not.”   
Horatio knows that he is gaping at the prince, but he cannot help it. The words he has uttered repeat endlessly in his mind without making any sense, it seems, just – “love”... That feeling in Horatio’s chest, that draw, that pull towards the man in front of him, is coming to new life and it tugs so strongly at his heart that it is painful, but so _so_ sweet – And he knows not what to say to Hamlet because he wants to say yes, a thousand times yet, but to what, and also no because he can’t, he cannot possibly live in one space with the crowned prince of Denmark who has just so seamlessly put a word to the feeling Horatio has been trying to fight as if it were the simplest thing in the world – and the tug in Horatio’s chest becomes so insistent that he wants to sob. Sob because he is utterly lost, utterly lost to this man, to his words, to his eyes and his smiles and his moods and simply all of him and all of him he can never have, cannot possibly let himself bath in the _love_ that Hamlet is offering to him for if he did... If he did, he knows not what it would do to him. He knows just that he is lost, completely lost already because he is hopelessly in love and there is no denying it anymore and no turning back from it either and he can’t—He can’t take Hamlet’s words or his declarations of fondness or the way he is looking at him, patiently waiting for an answer and – “It does not, my lord,” is all he brings out.   
Hamlet smiles another breathtaking smile. “I had not thought it did.”   
Horatio takes a shaky breath and forces himself to answer further. “And I appreciate the... sentiment, and it – it is not that I do not share it, I do... And I hold the offer dearly in my heart as – as I do thee. I must blame it on my greatest weakness, for I fear it is my pride that keeps me from intruding into a friend’s living space and makes me as well shy away from the sudden drastic change in quality and social circumstance of such a living agreement. And so therefore I beg thee not to take offense when I rather do all in my power to find a place that I am more deserving of...”   
“And here we see again, Horatio, that thy pride is not the greatest of thy bad habits, but that it is indeed how thou thinkst too lowly of thyself,” Hamlet smiles mildly, but genuinely. “Well, either way, before thou hast to sleep in the streets, remember that my door is always open to thee.”   
And with that point made, he turns the conversation to a much lighter topic with ease and Horatio is glad for the heaviness had been beginning to grate on him, but he is afraid that the heaviness does not fully leave him now that he has a word for that feeling from inside his chest and the constant pull and tug at his heart and the warmth that fills his stomach at the sight of Hamlet’s joking smiles keep him aware of just that - _love_ \- even as he snatches a paper that he has been scribbling notes on back from Hamlet and says, “Stop adding things from your list of chores to mine, my lord!” And Hamlet laughs and Horatio is feeling fuzzy with it.

*******************

“On a scale from one to ten, how bad dost thou think it would be if I—“   
“At least a twenty,” Horatio interrupts Hamlet and glares at him as he proceeds to gather most of his very few belongings in a wooden box. It is another week until he has to move out and he still hasn’t found a new place. Either way, it is probably safer to pack up already because his landlord is getting more and more irritated with his still being here and Horatio wouldn’t be surprised if he were to be thrown out a few days early, should his landlord be in a particularly bad mood. Which he undoubtedly would be if he came across prince Hamlet who is currently sprawled over the one chair in Horatio’s room and poking at the flaking wallpaper behind him. Horatio didn’t want to have him here, but Hamlet was so insistent on helping Horatio gather his indeed very few belongings that Horatio has to marvel at how he has managed to keep Hamlet away from his room until now. Hamlet can be awfully convincing and so Horatio has carefully sneaked him in through the back door so that they don’t run into the landlord or anyone else - _sneaked him in like a secret girlfriend, _Horatio thinks and then scolds himself because he shouldn’t think such things because it makes the tug in his chest have ideas and that isn’t good because - _because he doesn’t feel the same way about you,_ Horatio tells himself, but _what if_ a small voice in his head keeps whispering, _what if he did_ and Horatio grits his teeth and abandons the thought to the back of his mind with all the other things he shouldn’t think because – because even if, and it isn’t the case, but even if Hamlet did feel the same and his affections weren’t merely of a friendly nature, which they are, even then it would be a horrible idea and it could never work out and – and he shouldn’t be thinking such things! But it isn’t helping things when Hamlet stalks into his room and settles down on Horatio’s small bed and Horatio immediately tells him to take the chair instead because the bed has been on the brink of collapsing in on itself for weeks and he can’t have Hamlet, prince of Denmark, crash through to the floor in his room and also couldn’t afford to pay the price for the bed back to his horrible landlord – and also because the sight of Hamlet _on his bed_ makes something other than just the tug in his chest have ideas and it puts _pictures_ inside his head – and he can’t deal with this right now.   
So Hamlet settles onto the chair instead and tips it forwards and backwards dangerously while of course not being any help at all and Horatio does his best to make quick work of collecting his belongings and tries not to let himself be distracted by the prince.   
Hamlet now laughs at Horatio’s remark and lets go off the wall, chair tipping back into a standing position. “But dear Horatio, how canst thou say this when thou dost not yet know what I want to suggest?”   
“I simply know it,” Horatio states. “Whatever thou art about to suggest, it is an absolutely horrible idea and we should attempt no such thing.”   
Hamlet clicks his tongue and leans back in the chair. “What tells thee this?”   
“I know thee too well.”   
The prince laughs in delight. “Indeed, thou dost! And yet thou dost not mind my company so much as thou used to anymore! And as it is thy saying that there is no getting used to my moods, it must be that thou enjoyst them instead or thou wouldst not be so involved with me!”   
Horatio very nearly shudders at that phrasing - _involved with me,_ God in heaven, does prince Hamlet not realise how what he says sounds? _Of course he doesn’t. To him there is no such implication to his words because he doesn’t feel that way so stop it!_   
Horatio huffs. “Indeed, my lord. Admittedly, my affection for thee is the greatest of all scholarly riddles I have so far had to face in Wittenberg. Perhaps that is why I do keep thee company, for a good riddle has never escaped my interest and most committed attention.”   
Hamlet hums and Horatio halts for a split second in what he is doing because the sound of it resonates warmly within his chest... “Well if that is the case,” Hamlet leans forward in his chair and the room suddenly feels even smaller than it is as he lowers his voice. “I shall hope that thou never solv’st this riddle.”   
Horatio stares back at Hamlet for a painfully long moment, unsure what to say to this and frozen into place by the intensity of the look from Hamlet’s eyes and he feels awfully hot all over – and then, after a moment, Hamlet leans back in his chair again and smiles lopsidedly.   
“So, on that same scale of one to ten, Horatio, how bad dost thou think Ros and Guil’s plan to turn the upcoming Easter gathering into a big feast and get the staff so involved that they will postpone the midterm essay dates is...?”   
Horatio sighs and places another few books in the wooden box. “I am not familiar with the details of their plan, but at least a six, I imagine.”   
Hamlet seems to contemplate that and then chuckles – and he needs to stop making all these noises because Horatio’s stomach twists at each and every one of them – “Well, that is still a lot better than a twenty, I suppose,” Hamlet muses and Horatio can’t help but agree.__


	3. Achingly Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Horatio moves in with Hamlet and gets to deal with angst, domesticity and sexual tension.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heeeey people. Two notes: One, I am very proud of this chapter's title. Two: I totally forgot to mention that I used a shit load of prompts I found all over the internet for writing this fic. I won't be able to trace back where I found all of them, but I will put them all in the end notes of the last chapter so you can see which are not actually words. So yeah, otherwise - have fun. This one finally had some real sexual tension. Yeay.

The week following this is absolute hell and Horatio is at a loss by the end of it about how he can possibly not have found any place to stay. There is a small voice from the more restless corner of his mind that actually suspects that Hamlet may have had a hand in telling people not to let their rooms to him at affordable prices and Horatio finds himself really starting to believe it as the week comes to an end and he is standing in front of the doors to Hamlet’s chambers and they are being opened by none else than the prince of Denmark who smiles a suspiciously self-satisfied smile and asks him inside. Horatio mutters something about this being temporary and only until he finds something else and ignores the suspicion rising again inside of him at Hamlet’s knowing smirk as he carries his things inside.   
Horatio has never been to Hamlet’s chambers before, but as he enters them he immediately recognises the scent of oak wood and understands that it must hang in Hamlet’s clothes all the time because the entire interior lining of his rooms consists of it. Hamlet’s chambers are indeed very spacious, or rather they would be if they weren’t an absolute mess because there are books, papers, but also opened as well as closed coffers and random objects and personal belongings each looking more valuable than everything Horatio owns put together strewn across the floor. Hamlet leads him through a carefully constructed pathway through the chaos, past the truly luxuriously huge bed standing against one wall, past a small corner of shelves overflowing with more books and papers by an armchair next to which a tower of books is lying, past a low table over which several card games and maps are scattered with a chaise longue and three chairs surrounding it and past another corner in which a desk if covered in what Horatio at second glance recognises to be leaflets somehow artistically stacked between empty and half-filled bottles of wine balancing carefully on top of each other. The room Hamlet leads him to is accessible through a door half hidden behind the prince’s enormous wardrobe. The servant rooms belonging to the chambers that Hamlet explains he has insisted stay empty are at least thrice the size of the room Horatio has been living in to this day and in much better condition. The main room is neatly furnished and better isolated from the cold outside than any room Horatio has occupied in his life and there is so much space on the shelves and in the wardrobe that Horatio feels a little uneasy at the prospect that he will never be able to fill it out with his belongings, but he is very fond of the broad desk in the room and also the room is far from seeming empty because even here Hamlet has left a number of coffers and boxes, these all closed and not leaking their contents onto the floor randomly, but still very disorderly spread out in the whole room. Hamlet clumsily moves a few of them closer to the walls so there is some free space between the bed against one wall and the desk against the other.   
“Sorry about that,” he sheepishly says. “An unnecessarily huge amount of things has been sent with me from Denmark as I came here and as I insisted on not being attended by any servants nobody has ever gone to the lengths of unpacking everything... I didn’t feel the need, but I can definitely have these moved to my room.”   
“It’s fine for now,” Horatio assures him. “They make the place seem less empty. I fear I will not really be able to fill it out.” And on an afterthought he quickly adds, “Not that I will be staying for too long so why bother anyway.”   
Hamlet gives him a bemused look, but doesn’t say anything about it. “Well, I’m afraid the servant’s washing room has been neglected over time and isn’t exactly ready for use, but my washing room should be sufficiently equipped for us to share and it is more commodious anyway.”   
Horatio finds that he agrees and his belongings are soon orderly put into place and he is all moved in and he and Hamlet spend the rest of the evening sat among the chaos in Hamlet’s room, laughing, drinking wine and passionately debating the true value of each of the heavenly virtues and Horatio laughs heartily at Hamlet’s attempts to personify each virtue in the performance of small dramatic scenes. The sun has long set when Horatio retires to his room for the night and for a moment Hamlet is standing fixated in the doorway to his room with an expression of wonder and awe and incredible fondness and something else on his face as he sees Horatio in his chambers and Horatio’s breath hitches in his throat, but then Hamlet smiles sheepishly again and closes the door between them and Horatio lets himself fall onto his bed and it is so utterly comfortable and the scent of oak wood surrounding him makes him feel so very much in the right place that his drunk mind wonders how he could ever think that moving in with Hamlet was somehow a bad idea.

It is the next morning that he remembers. He has slept very well and wakes up comfortably late in the morning. It is half an hour or so later that he knocks on the door to Hamlet’s room because the washing room is only accessible through Hamlet’s room and perhaps that is something he should have thought about. He hears a quiet affirmation for him to enter from the other side and steps through the door and immediately stops dead in his track. Hamlet is still sitting in his bed, covers pulled up to his stomach and studying a letter held in his hands. He cannot have been up for long, one foot peaks out bare from under the crumpled blanket and his hair is a dishevelled mess sticking out in all directions in the most adorable of ways and something inside of Horatio melts whereas something else tenses up at the same time and Hamlet looks up from the letter and their eyes meet and Hamlet’s face lights up with something so soft and warm and bright that it threatens to break Horatio’s heart.   
“Horatio,” he says, “how wonderful.” As if he had forgotten that Horatio had moved in last night and was now surprised, but delighted and he looks at Horatio as if he sees him, looking at him where he is standing and feels that this is the right place, that this is where he should be and belongs and that he fills out a space he hadn’t known needed filling out or maybe he did know, but didn’t know what to fill it out with and – and Horatio needs to stop these thoughts from flooding his mind, but he suddenly finds it extraordinarily difficult to speak and just stares as Hamlet smiles the happiest smile Horatio has ever seen him smile and _wow_ he wants him to smile like this more often. The tugging in his chest takes his breath away at the thought that he is smiling like that _at_ Horatio, yes, possibly _because_ of Horatio and he knows what a dangerous train of thought this is, but it fills his entire being with such warmth that he allows himself to revel in it for just a moment.   
Finally, however, the moment stretches on in silence and as it threatens to become uncomfortable Horatio clears his throat and lowers his gaze away from Hamlet, cautiously smiling back. “Good morning, my lord.”   
And he proceeds to the washing room where he tries to calm himself down, angry at himself for letting himself be carried away and stare so long and if he continues on like this Hamlet will grow suspicious in no time. But as he is done and exits the washing room, he walks past Hamlet again who smiles at him sweetly and his hair is still a mess and Horatio’s heart begins to flutter again and he remembers exactly why living with Hamlet is such a bad idea because he will so not be able to escape these moments, and each time something like this happens his affection only grows stronger and he fears that one day it will either spill out of him or burn him up from the inside and he definitely doesn’t dislike that thought enough.

*******************

Living with Hamlet all in all, however, is much more enjoyable than Horatio expected. Of course, Hamlet still has his more irritating moods and habits that Horatio is now subjected to even more constantly, but things are comfortable between them. Horatio is aware that his love-struck mind excuses too many of Hamlet’s bad habits, but he doesn’t have the willpower to do anything against it and in time – much faster than he would admit – he catches himself not putting much of his heart into looking around for another place to stay anymore and he starts looking less and less altogether. Horatio understands that he really should not have let himself be talked into moving in with Hamlet because now that he has this close proximity with the prince of course he doesn’t want to lose it or give it up anymore and he should have known that this would happen. The pull towards Hamlet that had started in his chest has by now taken over his entire body and mind and keeps fighting Horatio’s self-control for every centimetre between him and Hamlet at any moment.   
Their living arrangements feel outright natural in no time. The door separating their respective rooms stays open at most times – not that Hamlet cares much doors anyway. Either way, Horatio spends most of his time working in Hamlet’s bigger room because – well, it just so happens and also the prince doesn’t seem content unless Horatio is in the same room as he. But even in his own room Horatio isn’t safe from the prince’s moods and sometimes that can become quite challenging.   
It is on a particularly late evening that Hamlet wearily comes plodding into Horatio’s room although the door has been left ajar other than usually wide open and Horatio means to sit up, but Hamlet tiredly gestures for him to stay where he is. Horatio has been lying on his bed staring up at a text in Latin for hours on end. It is the evening before an exam and Hamlet has been too caught up in his thoughts to study any more so Horatio had made him a cup of tea and then put him to bed and retreated to his own room. However, the prince apparently couldn’t sleep and he now climbs into Horatio’s bed next to him without warning – at which Horatio nearly yelps – and makes himself comfortable, settling his head half an Horatio’s stomach, half on his chest and closing his eyes with a content sigh. Horatio has helplessly lowered the paper in his hand and hopes for an explanation, but it doesn’t come so he breathes in carefully to voice his confusion. “Hamlet, what...?”   
Hamlet shifts a little, places his head more firmly on Horatio’s stomach and hums. “As I expected, thou art much more comfortable than my pillow.”   
Horatio is so surprised by that statement that he lets out a small chuckle at which Hamlet smiles. Horatio shifts a little. The position isn’t uncomfortable, but Hamlet’s ear is so firmly nestled into his chest that he simply _must_ hear how fast Horatio’s heart is beating, and also Horatio’s skin tingles where he can feel Hamlet’s warmth seep through two layers of clothes by his side and he really isn’t sure how to concentrate on his text while having Hamlet so close. There is no fighting Hamlet’s moods once they have settled for a way of action though and the growing part of Horatio that wants to be as close to the prince as humanly possible cheers in victory and Horatio doesn’t know what to do about this situation or even where to find the will do to something about it so he tries to be comfortable and brings the paper back in front of his eyes with one hand.   
He cannot concentrate for long though and soon he finds his eyes drifting back to Hamlet’s head on his stomach. The prince has slung one arm over Horatio’s body and his stubble is tickling Horatio through the fabric of his shirt and his hair looks so impossibly soft and Horatio cannot help how the hand that he has lowered down next to him tingles, it is out of his control and he can just so hold himself back from reaching out to touch, his fingers twitching lightly towards the mess of hair and Horatio swallows. Hamlet, he notices, has cracked his eyes open a little bit and his stormy look has caught the trembling movement of Horatio’s fingers and for a very tense moment Horatio thinks that Hamlet will call him out on it or that he will cough uncomfortably and get up and leave. But instead the silence lingers a bit more and Hamlet, his eyes still on Horatio’s hand, says in an impossibly small and quiet voice, so small and so quiet that Horatio barely hears it, “You can if you want.”   
He says is so softly that Horatio would think that he has imagined it if he didn’t feel the breath and rumble of Hamlet’s voice against his chest. Nevertheless, he cannot believe what he heard for a moment and it is only when his fingers twitch again and Hamlet glances at his face that a part of Horatio wins the inner fight that has left him motionless for a few long seconds and he holds his breath as he reaches out very carefully and very softly tangles his hand into Hamlet’s hair.   
Hamlet’s eyes flutter shut again and Horatio cannot help the small gasp that escapes him. He strokes through Hamlet’s hair hesitantly and it is even softer than it looks and so smooth and Hamlet _leans into it_ and this shouldn’t be allowed to feel so right. Hamlet relaxes against him and Horatio slowly gets used to the sensation, hand more steadily caressing Hamlet’s hair and he cannot possibly finish his reading today because while Hamlet begins to fall asleep on top of him, Horatio lies wide awake staring at the ceiling overwhelmed with the turmoil of emotions inside of him. Joining the warmth and the fuzziness and all the _feelings_ that have so insistently been filling him out more and more over these past weeks is something else, something sharper and more agitating and more demanding and Horatio knows that it has been lurking at the back of his conscience, just waiting for this, waiting for the right moment, waiting for an intimate touch, to now come forward when Horatio’s defences are weakest and he knows exactly what it is. It is desire. And he presses his eyes shut because he has been anticipating this with dread and it really is the last thing he needs now that he is sharing a living space with Hamlet. But deep inside Horatio knows that the fight against this is already as lost as the one against the affection blooming in his chest that fills him out completely with how right it feels to thread his hand through Hamlet’s strands.

At some point Horatio must have fallen asleep and when he wakes up early the next morning the paper he was reading is placed carefully on his bedside table and Hamlet is gone, but the sheets still hold his scent and Horatio is half-hard in his breeches and he shifts and groans into his pillow – that somehow also smells of Hamlet – and he wants to cry because living with Hamlet now will be hell and there is something inside of him that _likes_ it and he sort of wishes his love really could burn him up from the inside and just leave a heap of ash because at least it would save him what will be a cruel testing of his self-control.

*******************

The only thing more ruthless than the slowly sprouting desire inside Horatio is Hamlet who is, thankfully, absolutely clueless of it, but also, unfortunately, doesn’t help it with his absolute lack of regard for personal time, space or belongings.   
One late Saturday morning, Horatio is sitting over some breakfast and one of Rosencrantz’s better essays that he has promised to proof-read for him as Hamlet shuffles out of his dressing room barefoot and Horatio shortly glances up at him only to look right back up a second later and make a curious discovery.   
“Is that... my shirt?”   
Hamlet who is currently settling down opposite him flinches lightly and for a moment he looks very caught, but then his face is all innocence and surprise and it’s so well played that Horatio could think he imagined it. “This?” Hamlet lightly tugs at the white shirt hanging from his lanky form. He and Horatio are about the same height and built, but Hamlet is impossible slim where Horatio is a little broader. It fits Hamlet, but he has to acknowledge that it isn’t his. “Well, I must have found it somewhere and mistaken it for mine.”   
Horatio doubts that because it is Hamlet’s clothes that end up scattered around the room, but Horatio neatly keeps his things to himself. The only place Hamlet can have found his shirt is in the washing room where he might have forgotten it, but he thinks he would remember that so the only other option is that Hamlet actually tiptoed to his wardrobe and got it from there. Really, there is no way Hamlet just “found” it and even less one that he “mistook” it for his own, but Horatio doesn’t call him out on it – he has a more urgent concern. He suddenly feels very weak in the knee and were he not already sitting, he’d have to sit down because seeing Hamlet wearing his clothes stirs something awake inside of him that he hadn’t been aware exists – something _possessive._ And that possessiveness tears at Horatio’s core and it _pains_ him because that is _not_ what Hamlet wearing his shirt means, that is _not_ the implication of it and it never will be and when did that start hurting so much? But also, that possessiveness hits unexpectedly and it hits deep and there is something inside of Horatio that wants to _have_ and to _take_ Hamlet – very literally – and he has to subtly excuse himself and hurry to the washing room where he closes the door and sits, leaning his back against it, catching his breath. He is way too riled up by so small a thing and he curses his body because this shouldn’t cause such strong emotional reactions, Hamlet is just wearing his shirt, it’s innocent, he’s doing it as a friend, friends share clothes sometimes. They already share their chambers, why shouldn’t they share their clothes? And it’s not like it _means_ anything. Hamlet simply has no regard for personal belongings, for him it isn’t any different from wearing his own shirts. _I am a horrible friend,_ Horatio thinks and then gets a grip because actually, he’s a great friend and he puts up with all of Hamlet’s bad habits and that should be more difficult than keeping his feelings under control. And so, he calms down and gets back out to Hamlet who gives him a worrying look and for a horrible second Horatio fears that he will offer him his shirt back right there and then – and were Hamlet to now undress before him, he would surely faint – but Hamlet just absent-mindedly tugs at the sleeve of the shirt and Horatio gives a small smile because warmth fills him at seeing the gesture and he spends the rest of their breakfast forcing himself to find Hamlet wearing his shirt more endearing than enticing because that seems less dangerous at the moment.

*******************

Horatio carefully tames his desire even when he cannot stop it from growing, but even more strongly every day his affection for Hamlet impossibly grows and the two things melt into each other to the point where Horatio’s possessiveness – that he hadn’t known he was capable of – has turned into a strong protectiveness that he realises now has probably been sprouting since the day he beat up a guy in a tavern for Hamlet, perhaps even since the day he looked after the drugged prince in the greenhouse. It feels so good, he understands, to have Hamlet around because he knows that Hamlet is safe with him and he feels this way, he realises, not so much because he believes himself to be fit for protecting the prince, but rather because _Hamlet_ feels safe when he is with Horatio.   
Horatio knows that Hamlet suffers from insomnia, and at times from paranoia, but he only slowly learns to understand the full extent of it. One night, he is woken up from something tugging at his blanket and then Hamlet is slipping underneath the covers next to him and his first instinct is to seek out the warmth of another body, but Hamlet’s feet and hands are awfully cold against Horatio’s and he’s slowly startled more awake.   
“What time is it?”   
“About four in the morning.”   
Horatio blinks. That seems terribly early. “Art thou alright?”   
“Just...hold me.” Hamlet has crawled closer and curled into Horatio’s side and Horatio feels his heart sting at the smallness of Hamlet’s voice and he readily wraps an arm around him, all worry and tenderness.   
A few minutes pass in which they lie in silence, Hamlet tense in his arms, his feet and hands slowly turning warmer between Horatio’s. After a while Horatio carefully asks, “Thou com’st to my room and wake me up at 4 a.m. just to cuddle?”   
Another minute passes in which Hamlet doesn’t respond and Horatio gives him time, arm tightening around him reassuringly. He doesn’t have to answer and Hamlet knows that. But then he does.   
“Sometimes, I lie awake at night and there is this feeling of dread filling me out, and I am afraid that something terrible will happen, that it’s already begun, that this terrible terrible thing will inevitably happen and it will change everything and I will lose everything because of it and there is nothing I can do. And thou art just a door away from me, but I can’t call out to thee because I fear that when I call thee, you won’t answer and you won’t be there and it will all already have happened and everything will be gone and thou art gone too – and then I can’t call out, Horatio, because if it is true, if this is all in my head and I have already lost thee – no matter what else, Horatio, because I could take losing everything, but not thee – if I had lost thee and thou wouldst not be there, I would be nothing, Horatio, there would be nothing I could do and I am too afraid to call out because what if – what... I can’t—“   
He is breathing heavily and Horatio, impossibly, pulls him even closer and breathes steadily against his back so that Hamlet can concentrate on his breathing and calm down with it. A few minutes of silence pass and Hamlet’s breathing slows down somewhat before Horatio finds the right words.   
“Promise me something,” he whispers. “Always call out. For whatever is lost, I will always be there, and I will always listen out and when I hear thee, I will always come for thee no matter what.”   
Hamlet snivels and he turns in Horatio’s arms to face him and when he looks at him his face is wet and Horatio wants to reach out and dry his tears, but he knows that Hamlet never dries his tears until he has completely calmed down and they aren’t there yet.   
“Promise?” he asks.   
“Promise,” Horatio confirms and Hamlet nods thoughtfully.   
“In that case it is a promise, my dear Horatio. A promise for a promise.”   
And they shift to be comfortable and Hamlet finally relaxes and dries his tears and they fall asleep some time later, Hamlet in Horatio’s arms and Horatio holds him close and safe and yes, _thy Horatio,_ and in this moment it’s _his Hamlet_ – and perhaps that can be enough for Horatio. After all, it is more than he could ever ask for.

*******************

As it becomes more and more obvious that Horatio isn’t going to move out any time soon, he slowly tries to move a few of Hamlet’s belongings from his room to Hamlet’s. There is an itching in his fingers to bring Hamlet’s belongings to order, but it is neither his duty nor his business and he simply moves stuff around occasionally so that he doesn’t run into things on his way to bed or have to climb over ten things every time he makes his way to the washing room. But no matter how much he moves out of his room, the chaos seems to diffuse back through the open door and the absolute chaos in Hamlet’s room unsettles him so much while he is trying to study that one day it just breaks out of him and he outright yells at a coffer standing in his way, spilling half its contents onto the open floor and Hamlet looks up from a paper he is writing and asks what the matter is and Horatio has had enough.   
"I'm having nightmares where I'm being chased by boxes with arms and they tackle me and throw clothes and papers on top of me and secure it with heavy objects and while I'm lying there, thou art standing in the corner laughing opening a bottle of wine although there are a dozen half empty bottles already standing at thy feet!"   
Hamlet is looking at him with big round eyes and Horatio is fuming and he hardly has such outbreaks of emotions, but Hamlet has been oblivious of this chaos long enough and sure he may be a bloody prince, but if he wants to live without servants he better take care of his things, and he tells him just that and adds, “You want me to keep on living here with you? Then you better tidy this place!” And it is actually astonishing how fast Hamlet can get to his feet.   
They bring order to the chaos that is Hamlet’s belongings and Horatio learns quite a lot about Hamlet and the many things that he possesses but cares little about. Many are objects of great value, but no practical use so they are kept in their coffers and the coffers are restored, most of them inside the spacious dressing room where Horatio also insists on bringing order to Hamlet’s clothing. There are coffers simply filled with fabrics and the most different of tools and Horatio simply stores them underneath Hamlet’s bed. Then there is a great deal of maps and documents about official matters of Denmark that Hamlet has been treating with little care. Horatio makes sure to bring order into them without reading them in great detail and placing them in a coffer that is easily accessible from the reading corner while he makes Hamlet free his desk from wine bottles and leaflets and organise his books so that should he need one it can actually be found. The thing that Horatio marvels most at is a collection of drawings of Hamlet and what appears to be his family and people at court and he asks Hamlet whether he wants to put some of them up, but Hamlet will hear none of it and when he decidedly closes the coffin Horatio has found the things in he apologises and quietly explains that the lady Ophelia has made these drawings and that they used to draw together, but that was a long time ago and he finds it difficult not to regard these things with bitterness although he wants to hold them dear. Either way, he says, he feels free from the pressures of court here in Wittenberg and he needn’t be endlessly reminded of them for he wants to let himself be free and Horatio understands and agrees and finds a suitable place for the small coffer in the lowest compartment in one of the bookshelves that Hamlet finds very agreeable.  
This way, they tidy Hamlet’s entire chambers and Horatio makes sure to leave some of Hamlet’s belongings in his room because there is a lot of empty space to fill anyway and he feels more comfortable this way and after all the room still technically belongs to Hamlet, but then Hamlet takes a few of Horatio’s belongings – two books, a few drawings of the university campus, an exotic sea shell that his father had brought back home with him when he was still a child and a hand-carved wooden figurine of an owl that he had made during his travels – and finds places for them in Hamlet’s room and Horatio hardly even notices first, but when he does he watches in awe as Hamlet takes great care doing what he does and he acknowledges it with a small smile. They are soon done and Horatio settles down on the chaise longue in Hamlet’s room next to the prince who exhaustedly leans back in one of the chairs and it is in this moment that Horatio realises that this place, these chambers, have somehow in a very short time become his home and he isn’t sure whether it is because of Hamlet, but the tugging in his chest is back and makes his heart feel heavy and for a moment he doesn’t know how to imagine a feeling of home without Hamlet inside of it anymore and he just has to say this small but heavy word to ground himself, “Home.”   
Hamlet looks over to him and smiles and sits up and very earnestly says, “As it is, Horatio, this place has only truly become my home now with thee in it, making me make it more than just a room I use, but one I live in, with thee.”   
And in this moment Horatio understands very well what he means and he lets that feeling wash over him, that they are at home, together. And he never knew that he could be so happy and content in this particular way.

*******************

It is the day of Easter Monday that everything changes. The Sunday has been very wholesome and Horatio and Hamlet spent most of it out in the streets in the spring sun enjoying the buzz of people celebrating. On Monday morning they are running somewhat late for the service. Horatio scolds Hamlet for insisting on taking a bath in the morning, but there is no fighting Hamlet’s moods and Horatio is very nearly ready to go as he steps through the door from his room into Hamlet’s – in the exact same moment that Hamlet steps out of the washing room to make his way to the dressing room, steam surrounding him and nothing but a towel wrapped around hips – and Horatio immediately drops the hymn books he has been holding. It takes him a moment to snap out of his daze before he drops to the floor to pick the books back up and that is apparently exactly the time it takes Hamlet for to cross the space between them and crouch down to help him and as he comes back up Hamlet places the remaining books back in his arms and they are standing _so close_ and Hamlet is _touching him_ when he hands the books back and he is wearing _nothing but a towel_ and Horatio feels his knees go weak and when they begin to give in underneath him Hamlet looks at him in worry and steadies him with a hand against his arm, stepping closer for balance. “Art thou quite alright, Horatio?”   
And Horatio cannot answer because Hamlet is standing too close and he is radiating heat and steam and he smells of soap and oak wood and also of something much more intrinsically him that makes Horatio want to bury his nose in Hamlet’s hair and just underneath his ear and in the nape where his neck meets his shoulder and in the dip of his collarbone and – and Hamlet is perfect, he is a bloody Greek statue, a goddamn piece of art, all radiant and beautiful and smooth light skin and dark hair and storm grey eyes and there is a birthmark low on Hamlet’s right side that Horatio wants to study for hours and then write three essays and a lifetime of poetry about and Horatio can see one of his defined hipbones peak out where the towel is slung around his body and it makes his mouth dry and when Hamlet carefully takes the books from his arms to stop them from falling to the floor again, the towel threatens to come lose and slip downwards for a moment before Hamlet has safely placed the books on a nearby chair and his hand quickly saves the fabric from falling and – Horatio is sure that he has made a noise at the back of his throat because Hamlet surely hasn’t and suddenly Hamlet’s eyes meet his and Hamlet’s face is all surprise and astonishment and his eyes are suddenly a lot darker than Horatio thought they were and the hand on Horatio’s arm is suddenly holding him a lot more steadily and it seems to him that Hamlet has somehow taken another step closer to him, now that there are no books between them, and Horatio’s skin feels too small for him and he can feel Hamlet’s breath against his face and there is still something faintly worrying in Hamlet’s gaze, but also something very different and the tension in the air is so thick that it could be cut with a knife, Horatio thinks, when Hamlet inhales softly. “Horatio—“   
But he doesn’t get any further than that because in the next moment, there is excited knocking on the door and they stand startled for a moment and then Hamlet frowns and goes to get the door because Horatio still can’t move and as he opens it, it’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.   
“What are you waiting for? We’ll be late for the service!” Guildenstern scolds and Rosencrantz sees the state Hamlet is in and laughs.   
“Really, my lord? Come on then, get dressed, we’ve got to get moving!”   
And Hamlet makes for the dressing room and only briefly glances back at Horatio who avoids his eyes and picks up the books again.   
“Are you good, Horatio?” Guildenstern asks as the two come into the room and close the door behind them. “You look like you have seen a ghost.”   
“Well who can blame him!” Rosencrantz teases. “Our prince in a towel does look a bit like a ghost – all lanky and pale.”   
They laugh and Horatio can’t find that he agrees, but he will definitely not say that aloud. For now, he takes the moment to breathe and hopes that the incident will be forgotten by both him and Hamlet over the day. They’ve got the Easter gathering waiting for them in the afternoon after all and Horatio just hopes for a nice celebration without any complications or adventures and perhaps for once God will have mercy on him and he will get what he wants even if it would be an Easter miracle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am working on the last chapter, but writing smut is tricky, you knooowww... It'll be amazing when it's done though! So it'll be worth the wait!


	4. Easter fires

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which our boys finally take a chance. Easter fires burn bright.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey you guys! For this chapter I will change the story's rating from M to E and add a few tags. I know so far there has been no reason to even rate it M, but... well, warnings for explicit sexual content. Hope you enjoy this chapter. Please please PLEASE stay behind for the end notes, they're long, but it's a few things that I care to say to all of you.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, it turns out, have surpassed themselves. Their plan to turn the university’s Easter gathering into an enormous, boisterous feast succeeds with the help of at least half the kitchen staff, quite a few young ladies from the church choir, the convenient visit of a street circus that is in town and, Horatio assumes, the insight of at least one or two of the lecturers because else there is no way Rosencrantz and Guildenstern would have just come up with ways to entertain, distract or convince the dean and his high scholars that this feast should be accepted as it happens rather than immediately stopped. It also remains a miracle to Horatio where the lords take their unlimited supply of wine from and also how they pulled the whole thing off because it starts slowly, wine and food and finally women seeping into the gathering turning it more exuberant by the minute until finally there is music, dancing, shows and games everywhere and the feast is not to be stopped anymore.  
Horatio is still convinced that it has been an inherently bad idea. For one, because it must have been risky to get this many people in on it without their plan being discovered, and also because Horatio doesn’t mind finishing his work on time and despite the fact that the dean seems to have a great deal of fun, Horatio isn’t sure that this means that this week’s essay deadlines will be postponed for even a day, people will just be horribly hung over, but will have to finish their work anyway. But although Horatio is well-known to be a very dutiful character and although he doesn’t usually let himself revel in festivities very much, that surely doesn’t mean that he cannot or does not enjoy them – and as a man who appreciates good planning, he very much respects Rose and Guil for what they have pulled off and marvels at how well their feast is going.  
The other reason why Horatio still thinks this is a somewhat bad idea, however, is prince Hamlet. The heir to the Danish throne is in a very particular mood today that Horatio is neither sure he understands _or_ likes and he seems determined to have his undivided attention directed at Horatio who finds no way to escape or avoid the strange shapes and forms it takes. And _strange_ they are.

Wherever and whenever he can, Hamlet showers him with the strangest compliments regarding Horatio’s looks or wits or character and Horatio is utterly confused by it and only managed to weakly disagree so much before Hamlet interrupts him and refuses to allow any disagreement. It flusters Horatio terribly and he feels himself becoming more and more on edge and more and more suspicious when Hamlet draws his chair back for him to sit. It is strange, but it isn’t the worst thing. Every time Horatio looks about, he catches Hamlet staring at him with an intensity that makes his skin crawl and his heart beat faster and Horatio feels the need to drown out the voice in his head that tells him to read something into it by drinking another cup of wine. As he comments on the sweetness and the quality of the wine, Hamlet smiles and leans a little closer to say, “And yet, it is not nearly as sweet as thy smiles, dear Horatio, and of no quality compared to the quality of our hearts’ bond.” And Horatio nearly chokes on the wine and cannot help his spluttering because Hamlet is always easy in the declaration of his fondness, but he doesn’t always lean so close that Horatio can feel his breath warm against his face and Hamlet pats him on the back lightly to help his coughing and when Horatio has calmed down again that shy smile is still there and that hand is lightly caressing his back – and _that_ is what is worst because all through the feast Hamlet won’t stop _touching_ him. And every time he does, Horatio is all sparks and butterflies and he wants to melt and maybe he would if something didn’t harden and stir inside him with every point of contact of the prince’s skin to his. Horatio is finding is increasingly hard to breath, but when he unbuttons the top fasting of his shirt, he catches Hamlet staring at him again and it makes him freeze mid-movement and when Hamlet casually asks him why he has stopped while not even averting his gaze Horatio knows that he is blushing furiously, and he keeps blushing at things Hamlet says and Hamlet seems very content with it and Horatio doesn’t know anymore if that is worrying or exciting and perhaps these two things have by now become the same because he spends so much time with Hamlet.  
It is when Horatio makes a rather silly joke and Hamlet laughs out loud and lightly touches his arm that Horatio has the revelation: Hamlet is _flirting_ with him. He is doing it even if quite subtly, then still very obviously and he is also doing is _rather well_ and Horatio thinks that he should probably have noticed it before, had he only listened to that insistent voice inside his head. Horatio suddenly feels cold all over and very upset. Why would Hamlet be treating him like this, speaking to him as if to a girl, if not to tease him, to make fun of him, and Horatio wonders if perhaps Hamlet has noticed how Horatio feels and is now making fun of him or if perhaps he is just making fun of him throughout the feast – and either way Horatio thought that the prince respected him more, and it frightens him and leaves him with a deep feeling of dread, and when Hamlet turns to him and makes another compliment, Horatio cannot stop himself. He frowns and turns to Hamlet.  
“My lord, please stop.”  
Hamlet looks very troubled at that. The sun is setting and the sky has turned a soft velvety blue and people are beginning to light torches around the place and their light reflects in Hamlet’s eyes that look a lot more blue than grey in the light and they are staring at Horatio and Horatio think he can read worry, hurt and hesitance in them and he doesn’t understand. Then, all of a sudden, Hamlet has gotten up, but he isn’t leaving, he is holding his hand out for Horatio to take.  
“Dance with me, Horatio.”  
Horatio is staring. He cannot possibly have heard that right.  
“My lord... what—“  
“Will you dance with me, Horatio?” Hamlet repeats the words with great care and there is that smile again, shy, but genuine and Horatio realises how genuine it has been all day and he doesn’t understand, but he thinks that Hamlet wouldn’t be making fun of him, and nothing makes sense anymore.  
“My lord, I... I can’t, it—it wouldn’t be proper—I—“  
Hamlet raises one eyebrow and glances around and then back to Horatio. “It wouldn’t? I don’t see why, Horatio. I know of no one who moves more elegantly and gracefully than thou dost.”  
Horatio wants to protest that that is not what he meant, but he glances around as well and realises that nobody is looking at them and who could scold him for dancing with prince of Denmark when he has been asked by him and also Hamlet’s smile is so shy and so genuine again and he lets himself be pulled to his feet by Hamlet who then leads him down into the street where a man magically makes the sweetest music spill from a lute.  
Hamlet pulls him into the shade of a tree close to some houses, a little separated from where couples and single people are slowly dancing and Horatio feels his breath hitch in his throat when Hamlet faces him. He suddenly feels terribly clumsy and awkward and horribly self-conscious and has no idea what to do, but Hamlet pulls him closer without any such hesitance, places Horatio’s hands on his shoulders and his own hands lightly on Horatio’s waist and they are carefully and slowly moving with the music and Horatio feels his entire body light up with how close they are standing and how intimately they are touching and for a moment he is glad that they are standing so close because this way Hamlet at least can’t see his face, but then the goddamn prince of Denmark who seems to have special abilities when it comes to putting Horatio in uncomfortable situations brings a little distance between them – truly just a little, but enough so that they are looking into each other’s eyes and Horatio can feel Hamlet’s breath against his nose again.  
“See?” Hamlet whispers. “Most elegant and graceful. Truly magnificent. Anyone in these streets should wish to dance with thee.”  
Horatio swallows. “Is that why thou hast hid us in the shade of this tree.”  
Hamlet’s smile is impossibly shy, impossibly sheepish, impossibly real and impossibly sweet. “Aye, so as to have thee all to myself for a moment.”  
Horatio lets out a soft breath and with it a small noise escapes him and he feels horribly reminded of this morning as he blushes and his heart is _aching._ He cannot go on like this.  
“My lord... The way you have been acting... I feel as though thou art seeking to make me blush tonight.” The tone of his voice settles somewhere between accusation and question. When he looks up, there is that hesitance in Hamlet’s eyes again, but his smile is unfaltering and no less true.  
“Thou blushest most beautifully, Horatio,” is all he says, under his breath – perhaps, Horatio thinks, a little breath _less_ \- but he silences that thought.  
Horatio is suddenly feeling a little nauseous and the dread is back and he has to take distance from Hamlet so out of nowhere he frees himself from the prince’s light hold and turns away from him. He feels like he might be panicking and this is the last thing he wants to have to explain because he doesn’t think that he can so he takes some shaky steps away from Hamlet towards the houses closest to them and comes to stop behind a house wall inside a small and narrow, but hidden alleyway. Here, he tries desperately to catch his breath and leans heavily against one wall, but before he can bring any order to his thoughts, he notices that Hamlet has come after him and is hesitantly reaching out for him, worry written all over his face and he says something, asks if Horatio is alright, but Horatio cannot even really hear him because there are too many questions spiralling inside his head and too many emotions and confusing feelings flooding his heart and his lungs and spreading from there throughout his body like a poison or a deadly disease. He needs peace and he needs answers for himself and he needs them now and that Hamlet is standing before him isn’t helping because he needs to _think._ But the prince doesn’t seem like he will be going anywhere else anytime soon to leave Horatio some space with his thoughts so Horatio does the only thing he knows to do and asks Hamlet for answers.  
“My lord,” he starts, out of breath and unsure where his thoughts are going, but he cannot find it in himself to care in this moment. “Please, do not disrespect me, and forgive me if I am mistaken, but. Are you flirting with me?”  
A very small part of him cannot believe that he said that, but a greater part of him is staring at Hamlet, waiting, because he needs to know or he will go insane and Horatio isn’t even sure _what_ he needs to know anymore, but it doesn’t matter. Hamlet’s expression is still clouded with worry and he studies Horatio’s face carefully, and Horatio wishes he could read in his face with ease, but he cannot and so his heart misses a beat when Hamlet opens his mouth to speak.  
“Yes, I am, Horatio.”  
And suddenly everything falls silent around and within Horatio as he is looking up at Hamlet. There is that dread, at the back of his mind, and also something else, something that is causing the tightness in his chest.  
“Why?” he asks, not much more than a breath, but that question is everything, it is Horatio’s entire world and Hamlet hums in something like concern, but not quite. “Were you... flirting with me to see me blush?” He doesn’t mean to keep talking, but Hamlet hasn’t said anything yet and he doesn’t know how to say what he feels and what seems to lie heavily in the tension between them, but he needs Hamlet to understand so the follow up question escapes his lips before he can stop it.  
“I like seeing thee blush,” Hamlet finally says and there is that small smile again. “But no, that is not why. That is the problem.” And Horatio is sure that his heart must have stopped beating because he suddenly feels impossibly light and his head feels impossibly heavy all the same. A part of him wants Hamlet to stop because he’s not sure he can take a single word more, but once Hamlet has started something, there is no stopping him. “I flirted with you because I had to. It was the only way to make room for the fondness in my heart and I had to let it out and give it space. For had I not, I fear it would have overwhelmed me and I would not have been able to stop myself. And that although I—“  
He falters. Horatio takes a shaky breath and he feels like he and Hamlet are somehow standing closer now and he isn’t actually sure if he has slowly been leaning closer or whether it is Hamlet who has shifted towards him, but it doesn’t matter because he wants to ask Hamlet what he means, but he cannot speak and Hamlet is already speaking again and Horatio can feel his breath against his lips, that’s how close they’re standing, and—  
“And I told myself I wouldn't kiss you tonight.” It is barely more than a breath and Horatio’s brain in flooding him with thoughts about how Hamlet’s breath smells of the sweet wine they have been drinking and somewhere beyond it there is that strong scent of oak wood and – of _Hamlet_ \- and only now it reaches the outer regions of his consciousness _what Hamlet has said_ and...  
“Oh,” he breathes back. And then it hits him. _”Oh.”_  
And there is a hitch of breath in Hamlet’s throat, almost like a laugh, but it only lasts for a split second before that gap between them closes and Horatio isn’t sure whose fault that is, but it doesn’t matter because their lips meet and Hamlet’s laugh turns into a sigh and they are kissing.

A second or so later Horatio’s back hits the wall he had been leaning against as Hamlet pushes him into it and Horatio would be surprised to find his hands tangled into Hamlet’s soft hair if he could concentrate on anything but the prince who is kissing him as if his life depends on it and Horatio is struggling to keep up, but desperate to return the kiss and a sound escapes him that sounds dangerously much like a whimper and it only seems to spur Hamlet on because he presses Horatio more firmly into the wall and presses his body up against him and Horatio is _burning,_ his entire body is on fire, burning up from how _good_ this kiss is and from how _close_ Hamlet is and how he is yet not close enough, not nearly close enough and he is sure that he will burn up with it, he will burn bright and hot and nothing of him will be left, but as it seems nothing of Hamlet will be left either. His kiss is turning open-mouthed and he is groaning and Horatio gasps and for a brief second their tongues meet and it sears through Horatio like a spark straight down to his groin and--  
And suddenly there is a loud bang and they break apart with a flinch. The sound wasn’t from nearby, but still fairly loud and someone is yelling something in the town square and Horatio throws Hamlet a glance. The prince is obviously struggling just as much to catch his breath as Horatio is and his hair is wonderfully dishevelled and his lips look swollen with how wildly they have been kissed and – okay, Horatio needs to look away or the picture will draw him back in. But people are still yelling and there is another bang and a loud screeching sound that Horatio flinches at and Hamlet growls something. The prince runs a hand through his hair and they make for the town square wordlessly to find out what has happened, everything else put aside for a moment because, apparently, chaos has broken out.

They find Rosencrantz and Guildenstern after fifteen minutes of searching in some small abandoned tent that must belong to the circus. Some man pointed them to it at the description of the two lords and Hamlet strives inside with a determined step, Horatio half a step behind him. Rosencrantz is sprawled across a stack of boxes in a position that looks like it must be awfully uncomfortable, but he doesn’t seem to care or even notice, his entire concentration – and his entire _face,_ on that note – taken up by Guildenstern who is straddling Rosencrantz’s lap and is hovering over him, covering his body with his own, one of his hands somewhere underneath Rosencrantz’s shirt, the other tangled in his hair and from what Horatio can see their kiss is all tongue and teeth and he has to look away and cough self-consciously. Hamlet has no such reservations. He stands fiercely, hands on his hips with a scolding look that the two lords don’t even notice, too occupied with each other.  
“Fireworks!?” Hamlet asks, accusingly.  
At that, Guildenstern parts enough from his friend to throw a glance over his shoulder. He blinks at Hamlet disapprovingly and grunts a “Not now, we’re busy” before he is pulled back into the kiss by a giggling Rosencrantz.  
Hamlet will have none of it. He promptly steps up to the pair, takes Guildenstern by the back of his shirt and yanks him away from Rosencrantz and to his feet. Guildenstern yelps in surprise and Rosencrantz lets out an angry noise as he chases after him for a moment and then stops.  
“Fireworks!? What on earth were you thinking!?” Hamlet repeats.  
Guildenstern angrily frees himself from the prince.  
“Oh come on, what the hell!?” he complains, apparently still not having listened. His eyes flicker over to Horatio who he seems to have noticed for the first time and he seems to calm down just a bit. “My lord,” he bites out in an afterthought, looking back to Hamlet – and Horatio feels strange. It has never occurred to him that the two lords perhaps only address Hamlet by his title in public just as he does most of the time. He had considered it something special between the prince and him. Then again, thinking how familiar Hamlet obviously is with the pair, how much more familiar even than Horatio thought... He abandons the thought and any follow-up thoughts it causes. Not the time or place. Rosencrantz has by now sat up and rearranged his clothes a little.  
“We spent fifteen minutes finding you – what idiots arrange for fireworks and then run off to leave it in little to no care? Where did you even get fireworks!?” Hamlet scolds on. “You must have heard the explosions, or are you deaf?”  
“Yeah sure we heard that,” Rosencrantz mutters sourly. “But we thought it was just—“  
He halts. Exchanges a look with Guildenstern. “Those were the fireworks?” he asks, something like terror creeping into his voice.  
“Of course it were the bloody fireworks!” Hamlet yells.  
Horatio has never seen anyone rearrange themselves and hurry out of a tent with such speed before. Rose and Guil take literally no more than a few seconds before they storm out of their hiding place. Hamlet follows hot on their feet, still grunting angry remarks at them.

At it turns out, the accidental explosions luckily didn’t hurt anyone. And luck it was. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern had spent the better half of their month’s share and asked in more than a few favours to get into the possession of the fireworks. They had been guarding them faithfully and carefully for most of the afternoon, but at some point the wine and the excitement had gotten the better of them and they had left the goods in the care of a young boy that was travelling with the circus and promised to take good care of the fireworks for an hour or so while Rose and Guil went somewhere else. They paid him a few thalers for it and found a place with some privacy. The boy, in the meantime, apparently wanted to impress some girl and played around with a few of the goods. All went well enough until a group of fire-eaters passed by the scene and the boy didn’t pay enough attention to everything. Luckily, the girl was quick-witted enough to hush everyone away from the hidden fireworks, but in the heat of the moment a torch bearer got too close to a bit that the boy had been showing off with in front of the girl, finally causing the first explosion and the second soon after as the boy dropped the rest of what he was holding in shock.  
It all wasn’t very dramatic and nobody had been harmed – taken aside the boy that was both left by the girl and bereft of the thalers that Rose and Guil had given him by the same when they found him and yelled at him for a good thirty minutes. The real problem is the panic that has broken out that results in absolute chaos and it takes Hamlet, Horatio, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern the entire evening to calm the people down and explain the whole ordeal to the dean and high scholars, and the guards that had showed up take some careful coaxing into joining the festivities that are slowly picking up again as people calm down and have had a drink or two. It is agreed that the firework wasn’t a particularly brilliant idea and the goods are passed on to the circus for care-taking until the city guard will further inspect the matter for safety reasons as the circus has experience with this sort of thing. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern get off with a stern look from the dean and the scolding words of the university’s bursar who explains to them and makes them repeat what lasting damage could have been caused to people’s belongings and what that would have cost the university and, ultimately, the lords’ parents and the reputation of their houses. The pair listened solemnly and dutifully apologised to everyone. By nightfall as lanterns are being held up and the sweeter wines are poured, however, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are well back to their joyful selves, dancing, drinking, laughing and dancing just a little too closely, but not closely enough that people would ask questions.

Hamlet and Horatio have sobered considerably from the stress of everything and they hadn’t needed to talk about it to come to the quiet decision to return to their chambers as the night sends a chill over Wittenberg and the festivities turn a little quieter even if no less exuberant. What had happened between them had been put aside all through their dealing with the chaos Rose and Guil had caused and the matter indeed doesn’t come back to Horatio’s mind until just the two of them are strolling through the empty streets and halls around the university ground in companionable chatter. They talk about the feast and their studies, the dean’s drunkenness and the circus people and about Rose and Guil’s impossible ideas and Horatio is feeling light, but in a carefree way – that is, until they stop by their doors and Hamlet fumbles for his key with an awfully concentrated expression. Moonshine falls upon his features and he bites his lip and suddenly, unexpectedly, heat rushes through Horatio’s veins and he is abruptly and painfully aware of how _sober_ he is and how there is no haze conveniently clouding his more... _demanding_ thoughts anymore. His gaze is inevitably drawn to Hamlet’s lips and the way he worries the flesh with his teeth – flesh that Horatio now knows to be impossibly soft and yet rough in a way that makes something stir in his guts and that tastes so delicately of something intrinsically Hamlet – it takes Horatio’s breath away. Hamlet, unaware of Horatio’s situation, finds the key in one of his pockets, face lighting up and opens the door that swings open with a soft click. The prince makes a delighted noise that makes something tug sharply at Horatio’s heart and he turns back to Horatio with a smile that falters for a half-second as he sees Horatio’s facial expression. The air is suddenly thick with tension again and Horatio can’t breathe and maybe that’s bad because he thinks he hasn’t breathed for a few seconds now and is getting dizzy, but Hamlet is staring at him for only another moment before he blinks and clears his throat and some of the tension is broken and Horatio takes a breath that he hopes isn’t too audibly sharp. But Hamlet looks away from him and then enters their chambers and Horatio takes a second, but follows him – because what else could he do?  
Horatio has gotten a tiny bit of his self-control and awareness back when he enters. He carefully closes the door behind him and means to make straight for his room, but when he turns around his eyes fall upon Hamlet who has taken off his waistcoat and discarded his cravat and looks at Horatio with a slightly distressed look in his eyes. When Horatio takes a half-hearted step towards his door, Hamlet takes a hurried, seemingly unconscious step forward and now stands right between Horatio and his destination. Horatio sways a little as his feet react faster than the rest of his body and stop. He hesitates for a moment, his mind finally agreeing with him that walking right past Hamlet is probably more dangerous than just staying right where he is and so he takes a half-step back and lets himself fall against the closed front door. He isn’t sure where to go from here and there is this strange gravity that seems to pull him towards Hamlet and leaning heavily against the door is all he can do so that it doesn’t win the fight and makes him stumbles right into Hamlet’s arms. There is a stern little voice at the back of his mind that inquires what he is afraid of and reminds him that he and Hamlet kissed this evening and that the prince didn’t seem disinclined in the least, but Horatio really cannot think about _that_ right now and there are louder voices – voices reminding him of how awkward and tense this moment is, that remind him painfully loudly of his social standing and of the fact that Hamlet is his friend and also very much the _crowned prince of Denmark_ \- yes, and what a handsome prince he is... Horatio has to close his eyes for a moment to fight down the longing that is rising from the pit of his stomach. When he opens his eyes again Hamlet is still looking at him, seeming undecided over something and a little restless like he would like to pace, but he remains standing unmoved in his spot. Their eyes meet briefly and Horatio cannot read anything in the prince’s face, but apparently the eye contact does something to Hamlet because the prince stirs and takes a shaky breath.  
“We kissed.”  
He says it so softly and with so much care that Horatio could imagine he had imagined it if it weren’t for the insistence with which Hamlet _looks_ at him, not missing a single detail in his reaction as Horatio’s breath stutters and raises one hand to his lips in an unconscious gesture he doesn’t even notice until he sees Hamlet’s eyes locking on two of his fingers that have darted out to touch his lips in startled disbelief of the memory of their kiss... Horatio swallows and drops his hand, not able to look away from Hamlet’s eyes somehow although he _wishes_ he could because the tension will kill him if Hamlet keeps staring at him like that and also he isn’t sure what else the look from these eyes might do to him if it lasts too long... He faintly remembers what Hamlet has said and he blushes a little.  
“I remember,” he carefully breathes out. Hamlet’s eyes widen, only a very little bit, so little that Horatio wouldn’t have noticed if they weren’t staring into each other’s eyes so intently. Hamlet immediately picks up at that as if he has just been waiting for an answer, for confirmation, and Horatio realises with a shiver that that is very much what he has willingly given.  
“It was a great kiss,” Hamlet says, lightly. But the lightness is noticeably deliberate. His smile is back and it is so very sweet and genuine again and then Hamlet bites his lip again, seemingly unaware that he’s doing it, and something like restraint crumbles in Horatio as a radiant warmth floods his chest and something that he has been carefully containing seeps through to the surface.  
“Yeah,” is all he manages past his suddenly dry throat and it sounds terribly breathy.  
This does something else to Hamlet. He makes a tiny noise that startles Horatio and before he knows what is happening, Hamlet has taken a few steps forward and they are now standing barely an arm’s length apart. “So you concur?” Hamlet murmurs and takes another small step and Horatio can feel his body heat and he thinks that maybe Hamlet is feeling as hot as he is and he isn’t even sure what Hamlet has asked anymore, but his mind provides an answer and his mouth lets the words slip that flood his entire being at having Hamlet so _close..._  
“Dear God, yes.”  
He barely has time to register what he says, but he blushes furiously as he does and this time he _knows_ that he hears Hamlet’s breath hitch in his throat. The prince leans closer, just a bit. “Horatio,” he mutters under his breath – and it moves something inside Horatio’s chest, an impossibly softness and tenderness filling him and it makes him... stop. Without fully realising, he has reached out and places his right hand firmly against Hamlet’s chest, effectively stopping him in his movement. Horatio closes his eyes in a desperate attempt to concentrate on anything but Hamlet and to _breathe_ \- and he realises, slowly, but surely, what has stopped him. That tenderness has struck him unexpectedly and reminded him of every moment that he has felt the tug that is now dragging him towards the prince and the warmth that has filled him at Hamlet’s smile and the way he felt when they were standing close, dancing earlier and he has come to himself with a start. Because he realises - _understands_ \- the way he was feeling when he realised that Hamlet was flirting with him. The way he felt sick and put down with it.  
“Hamlet,” he whispers, a note of resignation and sadness slipping into his tone and when he opens his eyes he sees Hamlet’s big, round, grey eyes stare at him with worry and hesitance and so much _emotion_ that the noblest heart would crack at it, he’s sure. But he meets the prince’s gaze. He has to. His heart is beating painfully hard and now that he thinks of it he can faintly feel Hamlet’s heart beating just as fast in his chest and Hamlet’s stormy grey eyes flicker to his lips, then back to his eyes and then to the hand on his chest and it takes Horatio all the self-restraint he has been building up to this moment of his life to not either draw Hamlet in for a kiss or let out a strained sob – he’s not sure which he wants to do more at this point.  
A moment passes like this. Then, Hamlet takes a careful half-step back so that Horatio’s hand drops back to his side. But he doesn’t go further, remains standing in front of Horatio who feels oddly grateful for it. “I’m sorry,” the prince says, his voice uneven. “I didn’t – I mean, I was under the impression... I...” He takes a shaking breath and Horatio does the same. “When... Earlier, when we kissed, I – I thought...”  
“Your weren’t mistaken in your impression,” Horatio quietly admits. Hamlet’s eyes widen a fraction.  
“But you...”  
Horatio sighs. “I’m sorry, my lord.” And at the pained expression that meets him he cannot help but correct himself a little more softly. “Hamlet, I... I’m afraid I cannot do this.”  
Hamlet looks deeply troubled, a somewhat haunted glint in his eyes that Horatio knows, but hasn’t seen in a while and his heart stings because never in the world had he thought he might one day be the one to cause it. “But if this is what you want – and it is what I want—“ Hamlet’s hands gesture hectically, but he remains firmly in his place, as if he cannot bring himself to move further away from Horatio. “Or is it not what you want – I don’t – Why?”  
Horatio’s eyes are burning. Hamlet looks so lost and Horatio wishes he could run from this conversation _so much_ \- but he can’t. Not while Hamlet looks at him like this. Not while Hamlet is so distraught because of this. Not when he has promised himself never to leave Hamlet alone when he is so distraught. And therefore all he can do is open his mouth and grasp for an answer in his mind or heart or anywhere – he isn’t sure whether or where he will find one.  
“I want,” he finally admits. “With all that I am, I want. But... To have...” He falters. “To have what I wish for... It would break me.”  
Something shifts in Hamlet’s expression. Something that Horatio thinks he knows better from himself than he would think to know it from Hamlet, and the prince takes the smallest half-step forward again – by this time Horatio is certain that he doesn’t even know he’s doing it. “But why?” Hamlet asks again, all despair and hesitance and a note of hope that hits Horatio right in the chest. “I would never – Horatio, I would never do anything to hurt or to disrespect thee, I would – I will never let anything break thee, Horatio, let alone myself, I wouldn’t, I—“  
A sound not unlike a sob escapes Horatio and Hamlet flinches at it. Horatio tries desperately to collect himself, clenching his eyes shut for a moment and taking a deep breath. “’Tis not you, sweet prince,” he finally says as he opens his eyes again. “I fear it’s me. I—“ And suddenly he doesn’t find it in himself to keep to himself what he feels because when they are here now, how will there ever be any going back? And when he isn’t truthful now, how will he ever look upon the prince and not loathe himself for it? “I will not lie to thee, Hamlet, I want your everything. That want fills me out and occupies every of my thoughts and actions whether I want it to or not and – and if I let it guide me, if I give in, it will flood me and I will drown in it. Or if I let you spark the fire, it will surely burn me to the ground and – and it will never be enough. I crave your proximity, but I yearn for so much more than that – and it will never – I will never – the strain of it will break me, my good lord...!”  
At that, Hamlet seems confused. “How can you think that?” he asks and Horatio can only shake his head because he cannot find his voice right now. Hamlet takes another step closer, comes to a stop right in front of him, lets out a huff of breath. “Horatio, what thou feel’st—“  
“I love thee.” The words escape his lips before he knows they were sitting on his tongue and interrupt the prince mid-sentence. Said prince falls silent, not just in voice, everything about him seems to stop and he stands miraculously calm in front of Horatio – calmer than Horatio has ever seen him in his life. It is very unlike Hamlet and it unsettles Horatio. For a long moment he suspect Hamlet will turn around and leave without another word, but no such thing happens.  
Instead, Hamlet takes a deep, steady breath. “You do not think an equal desire could anchor yours?”  
Horatio is puzzled by the answer. The prince’s voice is tight and he doesn’t know what to think of it. “I know how true you are, my lord,” he answers cautiously. “And I know you hold me in your heart and it is more than ever I thought to wish for in my wildest dreams – in faith, I would never ask of you a thing, let alone something that you would not know or seek to give.”  
It is all he knows to say and he has no idea what reaction to expect so he struggles to keep up with Hamlet’s facial expression that within seconds turns from absolutely blank to disbelieving to distressed to indignant. “Tell me, good Horatio,” he says slowly. “Have I been such an awful friend or art thou so blind?”  
Horatio blinks in surprise. “My lord?”  
“No, not ‘my lord’!” Hamlet hisses, and then runs a hand through his hair, calming himself. “I thought I had been more than free and fairly honest with my affection, Horatio, truly I thought that! And I have been seeking nothing less than thy proximities in any way I could think of for many weeks – and I have taken the utmost care in all of my steps for never would I have asked of thee what thou didst seem hesitant to be bestowed upon! So to gain the intimacy of thy friendship and trust was all I let my heart wish for because I wanted to be true to thee more than ever I have been true to a soul in the world, counting myself. It was all I could do to tame my heart to the declarations of my fondness that my tongue would not stop to produce. But that thou wouldst think I may be driven by anything less than what thou tell’st me of thy feelings – Canst thou truly believe for just a moment that what I would want could be just thy body and passion – which I will admit I long for no less than is humanly possible – but nothing more – but anything short of all thou art?” A flash of pain passes over his features at this last sentence.  
It takes Horatio about twenty seconds to process everything that Hamlet has said. It takes another ten before his heart and mind pick up in the exact same moment causing him to let out a helpless sound. Some part of him absent-mindedly notes that there are tears in his eyes, but he doesn’t care. He can only stare into the storm of emotions in the eyes of the man he loves in front of him that will not leave his face. Horatio chokes out a breath. “Thou—“  
“Yes.” Hamlet says it with such clarity and finality that it takes Horatio’s breath away.  
When he finds enough breath to speak again, he doesn’t manage much. His mind is foggy and his heart is flooding his entire body with something so fast that he cannot distinguish it from the rest of him anymore. “I did not think—“  
“No, thou didst not,” Hamlet agrees. And then he has taken another step closer and is very much in Horatio’s personal space. “I love thee, Horatio. With all my heart and all my soul if truly I have one – and I would I have one just for it to love thee better than only my heart could. Heavens, I have been in love with thee longer than I can remember! My sweet, sweet Horatio, didst thou not see? All I ever did was show thee...”  
Horatio can’t take anymore. He hides his face in his hands when something within him breaks and all becomes one and the fog in his head clears and he is suddenly very aware of the moment – Hamlet _loves him._ He is crying. He is crying, hot tears wetting making his palms and he isn’t sure how it got to this because he hasn’t cried since the day his father died and that was many long years ago. Steady, warm fingers are prying his hands away from his face and Hamlet takes his hands in his and brings them to his lips, showering them in small kisses while whispering his name over and over again and Horatio calms, slowly, but surely. Eventually, Hamlet lets his hands go gently and Horatio dries his tears.  
“Tell me thou criest out of happiness, please?” Hamlet whispers and Horatio lets out a small breathy laugh. He looks back up and meets Hamlet’s eyes and the fondness in them fills him so much he will burst and he cannot stop himself from reaching out, brushing his fingers across Hamlet’s cheek. “It is inherently tragic, isn’t it?” he whispers back. “I am blessed with the man I love with all my heart loving me back. And nevertheless, it is impossible and he and I can never be.”  
Hamlet catches his hand with one of his own as he pulls it away from Hamlet’s cheek. The concern is back in his eyes. “Why can’t it be?” he demands. “Why should it not be possible?”  
Horatio sighs, caught somewhere between the lightness of discovering that Hamlet feels the same way as he does and the heaviness of understanding that even that won’t save them. “My sweet prince,” he breathes. “I meant every word when I said that I want all of thee. All thou art. And I will never want less. In fact, as it is, it just so happens that the more I have, the more I ever want. So it has been with your friendship, your company, my place in your chambers...”  
“Our chambers,” Hamlet mutters quietly, but Horatio ignores it for now.  
“I will always want more to the point where I fear it will tear me apart. Because I cannot have all.”  
Hamlet sternly looks at Horatio’s hand he’s still holding and then back at Horatio’s face. “Thou canst,” he protests. But Horatio lightly shakes his head. It takes all his power, but he frees his hand from Hamlet’s.  
“If no earlier, it will break me the day that you will have to go back to Elsinor.”  
He hates to say it, but he has to. He hates even more what it does to the prince. The haunted look comes back over Hamlet’s face and he takes a step backwards and even turns away from Horatio a little bit. He seems to fight some inner struggle for a few seconds. When he throws a glance back at Horatio over his shoulder, the deeply troubled and pained glint in his eyes makes Horatio feel sick.  
“You promised to always be there,” Hamlet says hoarsely and Horatio’s heart aches.  
He takes a desperate step towards Hamlet again. “I did. And I will, my lord! The day you ask me to come with you to Elsinor, I will follow you and leave all else behind and I shall forever be at court to the day that thou no longer want’st me by thy side! But, my lord–“ He has taken another step towards Hamlet, but the other keeps his distance now. “Things cannot possibly be the same in Elsinor. We cannot there be as we could be here.”  
Hamlet shakes his head so fiercely at that that Horatio promptly stops approaching him.  
“We could,” the price insists. “How couldst thou believe that we could not? Horatio, if thou truly dost feel what I feel, how canst thou not believe in that?”  
“My lord,” Horatio tries and he knows he is pleading and that Hamlet is irritated by his use of the title, but it is the only way he can say all these things. He has to keep this fragile distance or he will break. “I was under the impression – I _know_ that your responsibility to the kingdom matters to you, even as you revel in the freedom from it in Wittenberg! But how would you be true to Denmark, to thyself and to... to me? What about your family, my lord? What about your duties?”  
Hamlet has started pacing. He is practically fuming with irritation. “What about them?” he snaps.  
“What about the lady Ophelia?” Horatio adds carefully. He never wanted to bring it up, but he knows what the young woman means to Hamlet and has probably once meant to him and he has a clear idea of what she is expected to mean to him. And he is glad that Hamlet has got someone at court who he is fond of, even if perhaps not as fond as he could be, but fond enough that they could be a good match should they get married one day. The thought has comforted Horatio as much as it has pained him for a while, but now he brings it up because he knows not how else to convince Hamlet of his point, but the prince needs to understand. He has to! And indeed, the mention of the name visibly gives Hamlet pause and he stops his pacing. The look he throws Horatio, however, is not one of understanding dawning or even defeat, but rather one of determination and something softer yet more passionate – like faith.  
“Thou art the most loyal and dutiful of all men, Horatio,” he quietly says. “And thou art true. I trust that, and thee, more than anything else in this cruel, deceiving world. Truly, I do. So I believe thy declarations of love and I would have thee believe mine. I understand that thou seek’st to be loyal and true to me in what thou art saying, but Horatio... Dost thou truly believe in this love so little? Is thine so fragile – as I do not think – or dost thou doubt mine so much that thou canst not believe this love could conquer all, survive all else, stand strong against all challenge?”  
Horatio swallows. He has never been one to believe that true love conquers all, he is too rational and dutiful, as Hamlet has rightly said, to trust in much but faithful service to set things right. But what he feels for Hamlet... There is a certainty within him that even this rationality cannot touch and that wants to convince him that this love _can_ withstand all else if only he _lets_ it. But this isn’t his life he is facing, it is Hamlet’s. And Hamlet is a prince and he will be king one day and he will live a life of duty and service to something that is much greater than Horatio. And Horatio knows and admires how much that means to Hamlet, even if he doesn’t often show it. So Horatio thought he could be happy in serving this dutiful king Hamlet who would always be his sweet prince in his heart, but never anywhere else. Now, however... It strikes him as mad how ready Hamlet is to face all that and maybe risk it for this love, and yet how convinced he is that he will be the man he wants to be, become the king he wants his father to be proud of, despite allowing himself this love for Horatio. It strikes him as mad, yes, and he knows that Hamlet feels ahead of himself at times and rushes into things and just lives that way because he doesn’t know how else to live and it scares him. It scares him that maybe Hamlet will take him now, but won’t be able to deal with it later and Horatio won’t know how to help him. It scares him how passionately Hamlet loves and although there is no less passion behind Horatio’s tender, cautious words, he struggles and hesitates to let this happen, to let this line be crossed. He would never deny Hamlet a thing, nothing he wants, and were he to ask, to truly ask, he would be his, but he also wants to protect Hamlet and what if this will eventually turn out to have been the wrong decision? What if he will one day think that in this moment he should have been the rational one and that could have spared Hamlet so much pain? Or what if Hamlet will have to let him fall and he won’t know how to deal with it? What if Hamlet won’t know how to deal with it and will disappoint himself in all aspects of his being and what if that will break Hamlet? What if Hamlet’s love will pass as quickly as his lighter moods do so often? Horatio doesn’t know who of them he is more afraid for anymore and perhaps it doesn’t matter. It’s possibly all one, for him anyway. All his being is so honed in on Hamlet that it’s all one. But not their love. He hesitates to share it, afraid that it will spiral out of control if he does. And so as he looks at Hamlet and considers his question he isn’t sure.  
“I don’t know,” he admits in answer.  
Hamlet nods at that as if he understands perfectly. And then he turns around and swiftly makes it to the other side of the room and for a moment Horatio thinks he will leave, but then he is confused because Hamlet crouches down next to a shelf and picks up a leather satchel from the lowest compartment. He walks over to his desk that is only a few steps away from where Horatio is standing and puts the satchel down on it, impatiently waving Horatio closer who hesitantly complies  
“The lady Ophelia and I,” Hamlet starts, then falters, glances at the approaching Horatio and starts again while opening the satchel. “Well, things were different between us once, but... And we’re aware of what is expected of us. One could say we have a sort of agreement. But primarily, we are friends. She is very dear to me and it is important to have someone at court who you can confide in. I send her letters. Well, I hadn’t in a while, but I started again when you – when we...” He seems hesitant, but then takes a deep breath and continues calmly. “I tell her things. Things that matter. Things that... You know how Rosencrantz and Guildenstern report to the court what I’m doing? They are good men, but – well... The kinds of things that I do _not_ tell them – not out of spite, but for both mine and their freedom and protection – those are the kinds of things I tell the lady Ophelia.” He pulls a small stack of papers out of the satchel. Horatio steps up next to him and recognises the prince’s swift and small handwriting covering the entire top page. It is a letter, apparently to the lady Ophelia. Hamlet shifts through the pages and Horatio spots some covered in a different hand that he doesn’t know, more delicate and neat. “I have told her about you,” Hamlet quietly says and Horatio starts. “Nothing – nothing in great detail. And I have passed on no personal information that has been shared just between the two of us, it is just... I needed to speak to someone of the feelings that were overwhelming me – someone with distance, someone who would understand. I have...” He hesitates. “She was very sweet and understanding about it. Really, I believe she likes thee quite a bit from my telling her of thee alone – although what I have written of thee is of course admittedly overshadowed by my feelings and therefore I do not think anyone could read it and _not_ like thee, but also I do not see how anyone could ever not take a fancy to thee so...” He falters, and then pulls out one of the lowest papers in the stack. “She asked for me to tell her more of thee and I... I haven’t drawn since childhood, but I could not think of any other way to express what I feel and how thou dost capture my attention at any waking or sleeping second so I...”  
He lays out three papers on the desk in front of them and Horatio’s eyes roam over drawings of him – small drawings of him writing, of him bowed over a chess board or hunched over a book and one big one that covers the entire third page that shows him smiling at something that the onlooker cannot see. Horatio immediately has to think of the drawings he found while tidying Hamlet’s room and his heart skips a beat. The softness with which Hamlet spoke about drawing with the lady Ophelia in their childhood days and the care with which he stowed the pictures away, but would not hang them up... Horatio’s heart suddenly feels too big for his chest and he is finding it difficult to breath. “Wow. I feel important,” is all he manages.  
“You are important,” Hamlet breathes next to him and Horatio turns to him, meets his gaze. They are standing awfully close again and Horatio feels dizzy with emotion and with the heat radiating off Hamlet. “Dost thou understand how strong this is between us now, my dear Horatio?” Hamlet asks in a whisper. “Dost thou know now how deeply I love thee? How much of my being this love has taken over?”  
And Horatio understands. He does. And all he can do is nod his head and let out a desperate breath in something that’s not quite a laugh of wonder. Hamlet loves him and the true _knowledge_ of that is flooding his senses and it aches, it aches how much it matters. Hamlet looks at him with so much hope in his eyes that it will make Horatio cry again and this fear claws at his throat again.  
“But my sweet prince,” he whispers. “If it is true – and heavens, yes, I see it is, I... If thou dost feel what I feel, I can’t... If it threatens to break thee apart as much as it strains me, how could I do it? How could I let us fall even more? Hamlet, I... I would break in two a million times for thee, but I could not bear if thou werest to break apart – and as thou dost truly love me so deeply – as I do you – I fear it will... And I cannot – I will not...”  
At that, Hamlet actually laughs. It is a desperate laugh that carries some sadness, but also disbelief and astonished delight. “Horatio!” Hamlet says. “Oh, my dear sweet Horatio...” And he has to turn away and take a few steps into the room, away from Horatio who wants to reach out after him, but stops himself.  
“Horatio,” Hamlet says with such urgency like nothing has ever been more important than that Horatio listens to him. “Horatio, I have _never_ in my _life_ been anything but broken – until I met thee. I didn’t even know what being whole meant before I met thee. Thou art the one who made me whole. I have never stood a chance at being whole without thee and I will never be whole without thee by my side again.”  
Horatio feels something cool trickle through his mind as he hears that. He looks at Hamlet, sees the way he looks at him, the way he is wringing his hands and pouring out his heart in desperate hope that Horatio will understand. And Horatio thinks of the Hamlet who crawled into his bed when he had nightmares, or the one who crawled into his bed simply because he couldn’t sleep. He thinks of the Hamlet who must have stolen a shirt out of his wardrobe to wear it and of the Hamlet who let himself be convinced to stop quarrelling once Horatio stepped him. He thinks of the Hamlet who flirts with him, dances with him, smiles at him; of the Hamlet who spent weeks convincing him to move into his chambers; of the Hamlet who looked at him with all the fondness in the world the first morning after moving in when he walked into his room; of the Hamlet staring up at him from the floor of a greenhouse, eyes round with wonder. He thinks of the Hamlet who has drawn him and sent letters about him to his one female friend at court. And he understands. It overcomes him with a small gasp of surprise because even though he considers himself a just and empathetic opponent in debate, hardly anyone has ever convinced him of a contrary position once he has taken to a point of view. But right now he is looking at Hamlet and he _sees._ And he understands that somehow he and Hamlet have become fix points that are caught in each other’s orbits now and nothing will ever draw Hamlet away from him or him from Hamlet. The joy that fills him and the warmth and the sheer amount of feelings allowing themselves to roam freely now hit him hard.  
“My lord,” he gasps. But Hamlet has started pacing again and he is muttering on, about how Horatio is everything and about how he cannot lose him and how he doesn’t know how to be anything without him. And Horatio tries to interrupt him two more times with the soft uttering of his title, but Hamlet seems set on freaking out and while it is somewhat endearing Horatio also finds it quite frustrating. And so he takes a step forward as Hamlet passes him and raises his voice. “Hamlet!”  
At that, the prince stops, just briefly, his hands still gesticulating absent-mindedly, but he is finally looking at Horatio in something like anxiousness. Horatio gives him a reassuring smile.  
“Wilt thou just stand still?” he mutters and takes Hamlet’s hands into his to stop their restless movement and pulls his prince towards him and into a kiss.  
It takes half a second for Hamlet to melt into the kiss and against Horatio and Horatio cannot breath with how tender and soft and sensual the movement of lips against his is and his eyes flutter shut, but then Hamlet lets out a small approving sound and pulls Horatio flush against him and he doesn’t think he needs to breath anymore, breathing is overrated anyway, who needs air? Still, another small gasp escapes him as his chest collides with Hamlet’s and the heat seeps from their point of contact throughout his entire body and Hamlet takes advantage of his gasp to open their kiss and all Horatio can do to steady himself when he feels Hamlet’s teeth nib at his bottom lip is to tangle one hand into the prince’s hair and place another at the back of his neck because his knees will give in if he doesn’t hold on tightly enough. Luckily, Hamlet’s hands are holding him safely upright against the prince, sprawled across his back and also Hamlet seems to sense his situation because he places one of his thighs lightly between Horatio’s to hold him upright – or maybe for entirely different reasons that Horatio cannot think about right now because somehow within the tangle of limbs and lips his tongue meets Hamlet’s and he lets out a keening whine that he didn’t know he was capable of, and anyway he had never considered himself to be so vocal. That is a thought for later though because their kiss loses all tenderness and softness as Hamlet licks into his mouth with a groan. Something passionate, needy, nearly desperate takes over their senses and Horatio tightens his grip in the prince’s hair. He had forgotten that a _kiss_ could be like this and he wonders if any has ever been, but only for the smallest of moments because Hamlet’s tongue is teasing his into movement and he cannot concentrate on anything else right now – and so it comes as a shock when suddenly his back hits a wall, not painfully, but decidedly, and the impact causes them to break apart, both gasping desperately for air. He hadn’t noticed Hamlet was backing him towards the wall. Every one of Horatio’s nerve ends is on fire and he is feeling alive and numb with it at the same time and personally, he cannot _think_ right now, but Hamlet somehow seems intent on _talking_ to him? The prince’s hands are now braced against the wall to both sides of Horatio’s head – like he wants to make sure that Horatio doesn’t leave, or like he needs to support himself against the wall in order to keep the distance and not push up against Horatio again...  
“Change of heart?” the prince asks breathily and it takes Horatio a moment to realise what he means.  
“Never,” he then answers with a fond smile and Hamlet grins, understanding.  
“Change of mind then?” he corrects himself and Horatio feels his heart radiate with warmth again.  
“Thou canst be very convincing,” is all he responds and something lights up in Hamlet’s eyes and the way he looks Horatio up and down makes him feel hot all over, but then Hamlet still hesitates.  
“So this is all right?” he asks. He doesn’t need to clarify and Horatio is overwhelmed by the realisation that Hamlet holds back because he _cares_ so impossibly much and he is waiting for Horatio’s consent and Horatio feels so delighted by it that he has to laugh.  
“Way beyond all right, sweet prince. Way beyond all right.”  
Hamlet’s face lights up and he looks like a happy child that has just been given the birthday present it has always wished for – and maybe, Horatio thinks, that isn’t so far off.  
Hamlet slowly leans back in, only his head dipping forward and his lips meet Horatio’s in the sweetest and chastest of kisses. Horatio hums into it, but then Hamlet’s lips leave his again and he is about to let out a small sound of protest, but before he can, he feels Hamlet’s breath ghost over the shell of his ears and then feels the press of hot lips just underneath it and Hamlet nips teasingly at the tender skin. It is far from chaste and Horatio lets out a shuddering sigh as Hamlet’s lips slide slowly downwards, lips and tongue tracing a hot line down his neck, letting his teeth graze over the skin every now and then to make Horatio shiver, nipping sharply underneath his jaw before coming back up to meet Horatio’s mouth. Horatio, his hands by now having wandered from Hamlet’s shoulders back into his hair, pulls the prince closer and deepens the kiss immediately and Hamlet lets out a surprised sound, but doesn’t need to be invited twice. His tongue quickly and skilfully opens Horatio’s lips against his. In the meantime, Hamlet’s hands find their way between them where there is still way too much space for Horatio’s taste, but that is a problem for later because Hamlet’s fingers are astonishingly quick to divest him of his cravat and waistcoat. The buttons of Horatio’s shirt pose the next challenge and Horatio has to break their deep kiss in order to marvel at how easily Hamlet masters the task, opening button after button until the shirt hangs loosely upon Horatio. The prince’s agile fingers immediately slip underneath the fabric and roam over the sensitive skin. Horatio gasps as one hand runs up his back and another down his right side while warm lips find his neck again – and he is grateful for the wall in his back because his knees are going weak again. Self-consciously, Horatio remembers the prince and the layer of clothes he is still very much wearing in front of him. His fingers make quick work of the fastenings of the prince’s shirt and he desperately pulls it free from his breeches, working as effectively as he can while the lips travelling down his neck seek to distract him. In one breath, he swiftly pulls the prince’s shirt over his head and shrugs his own shirt off, letting both garments drop to the floor. For a moment, Horatio is distracted with staring at Hamlet’s bare chest – and the nuisance of a bloody crowned prince uses this exact moment to bite down on the spot where Horatio’s neck meets his shoulder. In the same moment, Hamlet’s right hand finds one of Horatio’s nipples and sneaks it between two fingers to lightly _twist_ \- Horatio whines loudly and Hamlet, the _bastard,_ twists a little harder and lets his tongue lap over the spot where he bit down. Horatio feels his knees buckle and it is all he can do to grasp for Hamlet’s shoulders and pull the prince flush against him. Skin meets bare skin and Horatio gasps in a breath as he clutches at Hamlet’s shoulders. Hamlet’s hands come to rest on his hips in a steadying grip and he presses Horatio more firmly into the wall as his knees threaten to give way and one of Hamlet’s thighs finds its way back between Horatio’s legs, causing their hips to meet harshly – and Hamlet, his face still burrowed between Horatio’s neck and shoulder, _moans._ Horatio fights for breath, grip tightening and loosening against Hamlet’s shoulders, and he grits his teeth, fighting the involuntary shifting of his hips at the feeling of Hamlet’s erection unexpectedly pressed against his own. They stand like this for a moment, breathing hard.  
Finally, Hamlet raises his head back up from Horatio’s shoulder and their cheeks brush lightly before their lips meet in a soft kiss. “We need to slow down,” Horatio mumbles against the other’s lips.  
Hamlet laughs shakily. “I don’t know if I can do that.” Horatio joins his laughter and presses their foreheads together. For a calm moment they remain in this position, breathing the same air, listening to each other’s heartbeat. Their bodies are still pressed together tightly, both of them refusing to let more space come between them than strictly necessary. Hamlet’s fingers dig a little more tightly into Horatio’s hips, only ever so slightly, but Horatio realises that he has been involuntarily rocking his hips against Hamlet’s lightly and Hamlet is trying hard to restrain himself. Horatio takes a shuddering breath. He wants this to last. Objectively, he knows that they have all night and everything beyond, but this... This holds some gravity to it that neither can put a finger on. So he closes his eyes and silently counts to ten and tries to calm himself. When he opens his eyes again, he feels like he can breathe a little more than before.  
“Hamlet?” he says. And the prince blinks at him, his eyes holding all the love that Horatio feels will make him overflow at any moment.  
“Yes?” Hamlet whispers back. And it is with that whisper that Horatio knows beyond all doubt that this is right and where they are both meant to be. His smile is bright with the knowledge of it.  
“Take me to bed, my sweet prince.”

Hamlet slings an arm around Horatio’s waist and takes one of his hands into his free one so that Horatio nearly feels like they’re dancing again when Hamlet navigates them through the room with small steps, each metre they come forward rewarded with a lazy, open-mouthed kiss. When they finally reach the bed, they half stumble, half roll onto it and come to rest next to each other in an uncomfortable tangle of limbs, but laughing helplessly into each other’s mouths. Horatio has so far been carefully staying away from Hamlet’s bed and now that he is lying on it he hardly has the time to appreciate the quality of the sheets or the comfort of the mattress because Hamlet’s next kiss is bruising in its intensity and the prince gracefully rolls on top of him, steadying his weight with his arms next to Horatio’s head. Horatio’s hands find their way to the back of Hamlet’s neck and into his already dishevelled hair and the leg that isn’t caught somewhere between Hamlet’s winds itself around Hamlet’s waist, securing him against Horatio. Hamlet moans softly into their kiss and Horatio grinds his hips up towards Hamlet’s in response, but Hamlet, it seems, has other plans. One of his hands takes hold of Horatio’s hips and holds them in place and he shifts a little until his erection is pressed into Horatio’s leg and Horatio can feel the press of Hamlet’s hip into his own as the prince slowly, delicately rolls his hips. The friction is delicious, not nearly enough and Horatio wants to respond, wants to chase more, but Hamlet’s hand holds him down and in place, and Horatio lets out a groan somewhere between frustration and pleasure. Hamlet wants to buy them time, and he understands, and appreciates it, and the carefully controlled movement of Hamlet’s hips against his and the way Hamlet’s breath catches in his throat make him dizzy. They move restlessly like that for a few minutes, chasing sweet ecstasy between them, but never crossing the line to something more, revelling in their proximity and shared arousal without haste.  
Hamlet is the one who loses patience first, eventually. Honestly, Horatio marvels at how Hamlet has managed to contain his movements and hold back for so long and if it wasn’t for Hamlet’s fingers steady against his hips, he would probably have intensified the movement long ago and he couldn’t have drawn out the moment. Like this, Horatio is very close to begging Hamlet for more when Hamlet finally breaks, and Horatio is glad. The prince lets out a long keening breath and parts from their lazy kiss, his hips stuttering against Horatio’s thigh for a moment before he contains himself and shifts away a little. Horatio makes a disapproving noise, for as glad as he is about any change from this torturously slow pace, as unhappy he is to bring any distance between him and Hamlet. But Hamlet seems to have something in mind and he reassuringly shushes Horatio with a light kiss to the corner of his mouth. Horatio finds with some surprise that he is more relaxed than tense as he hums at the kiss, and lets Hamlet shift a little above him, waiting patiently for what the other has planned.  
He yelps in surprise when Hamlet’s lips suddenly graze over his throat, tongue lapping at his pulse point, but the yelp quickly turns into a soft sigh when Hamlet nips at the side of his neck lightly. Horatio stretches out and lolls around a little underneath Hamlet as the prince carefully unhitches Horatio’s leg from around his waist and straddles his hips. With a trail of kisses he travels down Horatio’s throat, lips followed by tongue, sometimes by teeth. Horatio makes a startled noise when Hamlet first licks at the soft skin just underneath his collarbone and then sucks a mark into it that is sure to be visible for a few days. He kisses the bruised spot and Horatio tangles one of his hands into the prince’s hair as he continues downwards, exploring the other’s chest. Horatio lets out a loud gasp as the prince’s tongue runs over one of his sensitive nipples and Hamlet immediately takes the hint, closing his mouth over it and sucking lightly, worrying it carefully between his teeth, causing Horatio to hiss lewdly. Hamlet hums in contemplation, moves to give the other nipple the same treatment and Horatio _whines._  
Hamlet continues downwards, the goal of his path becoming painfully obvious and Horatio’s stomach flutters in excitement – or maybe it is just the many sharp nips and soft bites that Hamlet leaves all over it on his journey. Horatio’s breathing has become laboured and erratic when Hamlet reaches the point where the soft line of hair reaching from his bellybutton further down disappears underneath the fabric of his breeches. Hamlet hums again and experimentally licks at the soft skin, tongue dipping ever so slightly underneath the fabric for just a moment, and Horatio shivers because it tickles, but also it makes him bite back more embarrassing sounds and the hand that isn’t twisted into Hamlet’s hair is gripping tightly at the bed sheets now. Hamlet’s fingers move to loosen the fastening of Horatio’s breeches, only a little, not fully unlacing them, and Horatio who has been watching in something like tense anticipation lets his head fall back in both relief and frustration because he is painfully hard underneath it all and even just the loosening of the fabrics straining against him already does a great deal, but _not enough._ Hamlet takes his time though, his head dipping down a little further and he places a kiss on top of the layers of clothing, pressing his lips firmly into Horatio’s groin and Horatio lets out a strangled grunt between gritted teeth and Hamlet actually has the audacity to _laugh._ Horatio’s head snaps up and he glares down at where Hamlet is looking back up at him with a teasing gleam in his eyes and he darts out his tongue and runs it over the fabrics, applying as much pressure as he can without breaking eye contact so that Horatio can _feel_ it down to his core and he breathes in sharply through his teeth and for a moment he is very much inclined to begging, to pleading for Hamlet to finally undress him and touch him, but before he can even find his voice, Hamlet has broken their eye contact and his fingers are back at work, unlacing the fastenings of Horatio’s breeches fully now. The prince deals with things in short order and yanks down both Horatio’s breeches and his underclothes with little care, effectively freeing his desperately hard member. Horatio hisses yet again as the cool air hits him, but next thing he knows, Hamlet is pushing his legs apart gently and settling between them and he really has other things to think about right now. Hamlet’s hands find his hips and he presses a line of kisses to one of Horatio’s thighs and Horatio thinks he will actually curse him, actually break all boundaries and swear at the crowned prince of Denmark to get a move on, but then a hand wraps around his shaft and the sensation ripples through his entire being with such force and speed that he thinks for a breathless moment he will die, this will kill him, and it will be the most magnificent death anyone will ever have died in all of Wittenberg, maybe the world. Hamlet applies pressure experimentally, slides his hand up and down once with a loose hold and Horatio’s head drops back because he has to look away in order to bite back another groan. But then, Hamlet shifts a little closer between his legs and suddenly, without warning, closes his lips around the tip of Horatio’s shaft and Horatio _moans_ so loudly that he startles himself and he would have covered his mouth with one hand if both of his weren’t tangled too tightly in the sheets and in Hamlet’s hair to move them. But Hamlet doesn’t seem to mind, or to be startled by Horatio’s noisiness. If anything, he takes it as encouragement and his tongue darts out to lightly press into a spot just beneath the tip and Horatio has tears in his eyes. Hamlet lets his lips sink deeper very slowly, tongue swirling and lapping graciously at Horatio and when he has taken nearly all of him into his mouth, he suddenly pulls back with some speed and bobs his head a few times before stopping with just a bit more than the tip in his mouth and hollowing his cheeks, sucking sharply. Horatio groans and his hips buck involuntary, but Hamlet’s hands are holding him firmly down again and Horatio can’t hold back another moan. Hamlet seems very pleased with himself and he hums while sinking deeper again and Horatio gasps. “Hamlet—“ And Hamlet seems to be spurned on even more by that, hum intensifying and he dips his head, twirls his tongue and sinks all the way down, taking all of Horatio into his mouth. Horatio can feel his throat flutter and struggle a little where the tip of Horatio’s shaft hits it and he lets out a long strangled sound and the prince’s name escapes his lips again and Hamlet makes a sound at it that sounds just as strained and Horatio can _feel_ it resonate through his entire body and he has to bite down on the inside of a cheek to not practically _scream..._  
Hamlet draws back at that because apparently he either wants to torture Horatio even more than he has already or he wants this to last as much as Horatio does, either way he slowly comes up again, and Horatio lets out a long sigh when he releases him, placing a final kiss on his tip and licking from base to top, causing a shudder to run down Horatio’s spine. Horatio is lying with his eyes closed, exhaustedly tense, but feeling strangely good with it as Hamlet climbs up towards him and drops at his side again. He cracks his eyes open, but Hamlet’s lips find his quickly and they flutter shut again. He tastes himself on Hamlet’s tongue and the thought of that makes him strangely dizzy and he pulls Hamlet a little closer. The kiss is lazy and slow and wonderful and trying to contain their arousal without challenging it, drawing out the moment even more. They spend a few minutes just kissing, caressing each other, slowly getting rid of their remaining clothes. When they part Horatio blinks his eyes open again and meets Hamlet’s. The stormy grey is much darker than usual now and Horatio thinks he can see a hint of blue and also a deep gleam of desire and need that takes his breath away and makes him twitch against Hamlet’s thigh that is tangled between his legs and the gleam in Hamlet’s eyes intensifies as he leans a little closer, brushing his lips against Horatio’s ear. When he opens his mouth to speak, his voice is beautifully hoarse and scratchy and it makes Horatio shiver so that it takes him a moment to process what Hamlet has said. “I want you.”  
The statement holds so much heat and passion that Horatio is overwhelmed with it for a moment. It is as if this is all he has ever wished to hear and yet so much more and his heart is burning with it. But from underneath it all, a note of hesitance, something like nervousness breaks through to the surface and Hamlet seems to sense it in the cautious breath that Horatio takes because he immediately moves back a little, his hold on Horatio becoming more tender and his eyes searching for Horatio’s, their grey gleam more careful, loving, questioning, a little worried. It makes Horatio’s heart ache in a way so good that he didn’t know it could be.  
“What is it?” Hamlet cautiously asks. “Hast thou never...?”  
Horatio has to chuckle a little at that. “I have,” he reassures the other. Something like relief washes over Hamlet’s features, immediately followed by the worry seeping back in and Horatio can answer the next question before the prince has time to ask it. “And I want this. I do. It has just been a while and I... This is so real. And so much. And it means so much to me that it is just a little overwhelming, that is all.”  
Hamlet blinks at him, his gaze full of understanding and something that Horatio still struggles to believe is love – not because he doesn’t believe Hamlet, but because it feels impossible that the universe should bless him to be so lucky that this man would _love him!_  
“We can wait,” Hamlet says. “If thou wouldst rather. I can be an incredibly patient man. I have wanted to drag thee into my bed since the first time thou hast set foot into this room, and see how long I have been able to hold back!”  
Horatio has to laugh at that, and relaxes palpably. “I do not wish to wait,” he then says, with a soft smile, pressing his lips to Hamlet’s briefly. “I simply needed a moment to let all this sink in. I don’t want to let a single bit of the potentially best memory of my life go to waste.”  
Hamlet raises an eyebrow, eyes sparkling with good humour. “I’ll give thee plenty of time to let things sink in.”  
Horatio snickers and smacks him in the shoulder and Hamlet laughs and wraps his arms around him more firmly again. “I am no less overwhelmed by any of this than thou art,” he breathes into Horatio’s hair. “But, my dearest Horatio, never and nowhere in my life have I felt more right in place or more secure and safe than between your arms.” Horatio smiles and breathes a kiss against Hamlet’s cheek. “Come to think of it,” Hamlet continues lightly. “At the same time being close to thee has been a bit of a weak spot from the start. Heavens, I used to lean over to scribble notes onto thy papers simply in hopes of our arms brushing. And then when thou wert finally holding me in thy arms when I had crawled into thy bed, I was just praying thou wouldst pull me closer. I was so longing for thee to reach out and touch. I was so desperate when thou didst touch my hair but nothing else. I remember the morning after, nicking one of thy shirts to wear it to feel closer to thee. I think there was a bit of an idle hope behind it that thou wouldst tear it off me at seeing it...”  
He mutters on about things, but Horatio’s thoughts are stuck with the visual of Hamlet in his shirt, Hamlet hoping he would notice, hoping he would demand he take it off, hoping he would take it off Hamlet himself. Something stirs at the pit of his stomach and he remembers this something. It’s the _possessiveness_ breaking through again. “To remember how desperate I was for thee to move into my chambers simply because I wanted all of me to be thine...” Hamlet jabbers on and Horatio lets out a low growl and when he feels Hamlet start and shiver, another growl escapes him and he rolls himself on top of the prince. _His prince,_ he thinks. His sweet prince. All his. All at his mercy. It sends a thrill through him and Hamlet seems to feel the same because he is staring up at Horatio with dark eyes, breathing suddenly laboured again and Horatio cannot help himself, he has to lean down and claim these lips in a bruising kiss. Hamlet moans shamelessly into his mouth and starts a heated battle of tongues that Horatio very nearly loses when Hamlet’s hands suddenly grab at his backside and he lets out a surprised squeak, but then he bites sharply at Hamlet’s bottom lip in revenge and the prince admits defeat with a low whine. Horatio’s erection is rubbing against Hamlet’s stomach and can feel Hamlet twitching excitedly somewhere between his legs and Hamlet’s hands at his backside shift him a little, pulling him against it and Horatio lets out a hiss at the sensation. It has been a while indeed. But he doesn’t wish to wait any longer. Not when he can have this. Not when his sweet prince is squirming underneath him, longing for his touch. He is suddenly burning with need and from the way that Hamlet is looking at him as if he is the only thing with significance in the world and he feels it tug sharply at his heart and also much deeper where the heat is coiling in his guts. He needs Hamlet and Hamlet _wants_ him and nothing has ever been more certain.  
He slows their kiss and carefully parts from Hamlet who gives a disapproving noise, but looks up at him in hopeful anticipation. Horatio attempts to speak, but has to clear his throat before any sound will come out and start again. “Hast thou got any—“  
Hamlet is nodding vigorously at him before he can finish his sentence and Horatio gives him some space as he rolls over onto one side and reaches for a bedside table from which’s drawer he retrieves a small flask filled with a smooth oil. Horatio briefly wonders how the prince has managed to hide this from him when they were tidying his room, but pushes the thought aside and snatches the flask from Hamlet’s hand. Hamlet lets out an excited whine when he uncorks it and reaches out for him, but Horatio smacks his hands away. “Just watch,” he reassures him instead and Hamlet’s cheeks flush and he leans back, propping himself up against the head end of the bed a little so that he can take a good look at Horatio.  
Horatio, in the meantime, finds a comfortable position to hover lightly over Hamlet’s legs and pours some of the oil into the palm of his right hand, slicking his finger thickly in it. This part takes some time and careful precision and some other day he will let Hamlet do it and revel in the sweet intimacy of that, but right now he doesn’t have the patience or self-control. He reaches behind himself and feels for his entrance, easing the muscles around it gently before carefully prodding with his index finger. He hisses at the sensation and for a moment only concentrates on the sweet stretch of it as he inserts his finger further. When his eyes fall on Hamlet, a soft gasp escapes him. The prince is staring open-mouthed, his face overtaken by something like awe and his fingers are twitching at his sides, whether longing to touch Horatio or himself, Horatio is unsure, but the picture sends sparks flying over his skin. He shakily reaches out to steady himself with his free hand against Hamlet’s thigh and shifts a little to be more comfortable. He has to scrunch his eyes shut when he inserts a second finger and breathe slowly to relax while adjusting to the stretch. Although it truly has been a while he gets used to the sensation much faster than he had thought he would. He experimentally moves his fingers, getting bolder by the minute, scissoring the digits in order to widen the stretch. He has to fight for breath for a moment when he finally enters a third finger because it is all a bit too much, but at the same time it is so overwhelmingly _good_ that he lets the overstimulation wash over him until it slowly ebbs away and gives way to a much more satisfying feeling. With a sigh and a low grunt he starts moving again and this time small moans and gasps escape him while he expertly opens himself up for Hamlet. It is that last thought that makes his hips stutter backwards and his fingers twist and he lets out a loud, broken sound when he hits that spot deep inside him that makes his stomach take turns and stars explode behind his eyes. A hand covers his on Hamlet’s thigh and Horatio cracks his eyes open. The prince is staring at him, breathing hard, biting his lip and his eyes are wide, pupils blown. He looks racked with need and Horatio’s cock twitches approvingly at the sight. He locks eyes with Hamlet and removes his fingers carefully, emitting a slow moan with it – he doesn’t even bother to bite back noises anymore, not when they make Hamlet tremble so beautifully with want. Horatio briefly wipes his hand on the sheets and then grasps for the flask that he had dropped next to him on the bed. He leans forward and crawls up towards Hamlet a little further to press his lips to the other’s in a loving kiss. Hamlet sighs into his mouth and relaxes a little, but then cries out in pleasure when Horatio’s hand, now slick with oil again, wraps around his shaft. Horatio shushes him with another quick, but deep kiss and then turns all his concentration to where Hamlet’s cock is twitching in his hand. He runs his thumb over the tip of it, smearing a bit of pre-come, and twists his wrist a little to make Hamlet gasp underneath him. Hamlet desperately clutches at his shoulders and buries his face in Horatio’s neck. At another twist of Horatio’s wrist he gasps out his name and Horatio’s skin feels tight with it and a growl escapes between his lips again and he has to pull the prince into another feverish kiss.  
After they part from it, he makes quick work of slicking Hamlet’s member because none of them can wait any longer now. Hamlet makes a sound when Horatio lets go off him for a brief moment to shift and change position over Hamlet, straddling his hips, but Horatio isn’t sure whether it’s a sound of frustration or one of anticipation. He has to wriggle a little until he finds a position that he is pleased with. When he does, he carefully supports himself with one arm behind himself. One of Hamlet’s hands finds his right hip and the other his left shoulder, holding him tenderly. Their eyes lock again and they share a gentle smile.  
“I love thee,” Hamlet breathes.  
Horatio’s heart threatens to overflow and he leans forward a bit to place a peck on Hamlet’s lips. “And I thee.”  
He reaches between them and Hamlet shifts a little to make it easier and they both inhale sharply when the tip of Hamlet’s cock prods at Horatio’s entrance and then they both have to laugh about their shared reaction, feeling giddy with excitement. Then, Horatio lowers himself on top of Hamlet and slowly sinks down on him a few inches and their laughter turns into helpless moans and gasps. Horatio grits his teeth at the stretch and takes his time, letting himself sink further down inch by inch, Hamlet idly muttering encouragement, declarations of love and sweet nothings to him turning into a soothing background music. A thin layer of sweat is covering both their skins by the time that Horatio lets himself fall with a low moan and sinks down the remaining few centimetres. Hamlet grunts through gritted teeth and Horatio exhales slowly, getting used to the feeling. He lets the sensation of being filled out take over his senses and relaxes a little, waiting for the tug in his lower belly to set in, spurring him on to move and get more friction. It doesn’t take long at all. Horatio experimentally tenses the muscles in his legs and shifts a little, raising himself just a bit and sinking down again, clenching the muscles in his stomach. Hamlet lets out a sound more akin to a howl than to a moan and Horatio grins to himself – that is until Hamlet’s hips buck up sharply and he melts into a high-pitched moan. Hamlet’s hand wanders from his shoulder to his free hand and he intertwines their fingers, and Horatio leans forward and brings their foreheads together. They breathe together for a moment, sharing two soft kisses, catching their breath, and remain like this until they wordlessly agree that it is time.  
Horatio slowly lifts himself up again, the muscles in his legs first complaining after being forced into one position for such long minutes, but then grateful for the movement, and Hamlet supports him with a hand at his hips, his own hips coming up when Horatio comes down, the movement coaxing the most beautiful of sounds from both of them. They find a rhythm together, moving in perfect synch and soon picking up speed. Their kisses turn sloppy and are often more teeth and tongue than lips, more moaning and gasping into each other’s mouth than actual kissing, but it’s perfect. And when Hamlet’s hips buck upwards particularly hard and he hits that spot inside Horatio that makes him cling to Hamlet desperately and moan out his name, Hamlet stops for the smallest moment and then they are shifting hastily, Horatio placing one hand on Hamlet’s thigh behind him to drive himself down with greater force and Hamlet sitting up lightly, applying more pressure to his hips to support his movements and Horatio rolls his hips desperately until they find that spot _again_ and _again_ and _again_ and somewhere he is aware of Hamlet kissing him again to muffle his loud moans and Hamlet reaching between them and Hamlet – everything is just _Hamlet_ \- and it is that which undoes him and finally drives him over the edge and he falls apart with Hamlet’s name on his lips, his climax washing over him in wave after intense wave, shaking him to his core and filling all his senses with hot white light. Hamlet follows shortly after him and they hold each other through it, sealing the moment with a drawn out kiss as they both slowly come back down from their rapture.

They part with great care and Horatio feels wonderfully exhausted. Everything will ache in the morning, but the ache will serve to remind him of how _sated_ he is feeling right here right now and that is more than worth it. With a tired, but happy sigh he falls down onto the sheets while Hamlet gets up to get a wet cloth from the washing room. Horatio absent-mindedly brushes his fingers over a bruise that is blooming just beneath his collarbone. It stings and he smiles at how grounded it makes him feel. In next to no time, Hamlet is back and after cleaning both him and Horatio from the worst of their mess, he carelessly lets the cloth drop to the floor and throws himself onto the bed half next to Horatio, half on top of him, burying his face in Horatio’s hair. Horatio hums, content. He has been staring at the sheets in front of him ever since Hamlet has flipped him around onto his stomach to clean him and a thought is beginning to form at the edge of his still somewhat disconnected mind. Suddenly, he has to laugh, his whole body shaking with it and Hamlet raises his head in surprise. “What?”  
Horatio still cannot stop laughing and so he helplessly gasps out between fits of laughter, “It is the first time in my life that I lie on actual silk sheets and I immediately ruin them.”  
The look Hamlet gives him is so puzzled that it makes Horatio laugh even harder, but eventually Hamlet joins in with his laughing and whether it is just in delight at Horatio’s happiness or out of amusement doesn’t really matter because Hamlet is wrapping an arm around him, pulling him against him and they lie comfortably nestled into each other, laughing at the world until they calm down. Hamlet shifts to pull the sheets up around them and then places a kiss at the nape of Horatio’s neck and Horatio smiles and turns his head to bring their lips together in a last sweet kiss for the night. “I love thee,” he says and Hamlet’s smile is so bright it could hurt the eyes.  
“And I thee, my dear Horatio. And I thee.”  
Then, he turns back around, takes the hand of the arm that Hamlet has wrapped around him in his and shifts a little closer, his eyes slowly drifting shut. Hamlet is already breathing evenly behind him and drifting off. In a last thought before dozing off himself Horatio thinks that, perhaps true love does not conquer all. But what he and Hamlet have is bound to last beyond their duties, beyond all else and even beyond themselves, that is for sure.

**********************************************

I sadly had to start my endnotes in the chapter cause they were to long LOL, but look for continuation in the actual notes! Thank youuuu!

Hellooooo there!  
I hope you come prepared for the longest endnotes in the history of my archive writing (as of yet anyway, there are always records to break). This fanfiction has taken up a lot of my time and I would love to tell you a little bit about it. So I started writing this when _the virus_ hit university and my week was suddenly super free and I had this need to write, but no idea what. Also, we had just started talking about Hamlet in my Shakespeare seminar and I needed to write something Hamratio to get it out of my system. But as my writer’s block was horrible, I went looking for prompts. _Everywhere_ online. And made a list of them to use maybe some time. And then I decided to use all of them in one piece of writing, LOL. Yeah, that’s how desperate I was. Well, here’s the list of my prompts because I think you deserve to know how I’m actually not all that funny and my best lines aren’t actually my own, LOL. Seriously though, I don’t want to take credit that isn’t mine. Speaking of disclaimers, the characters obviously belong to Shakespeare and so on, you know the deal. Here come my prompts.

Chapter 1  
1\. Bonding solely via eye contact over that annoying person on our plane that we’re both slowly becoming more and more exasperated about  
2\. “The female of the species is more deadly than the male.”  
3\. Their hands meet, reaching for the same book  
4\. I’m in art class and I just opened a cupboard to find a tiny person (you) squished inside and you just looked at and said “shh i’m hiding”  
5\. “How long have you been standing there?” “Longer than you’d like”  
6\. Hey which berries are poisonous around here?” “All of them, except the green ones – they are hallucinogens.” “Oops...”  
Chapter 2  
7\. Remind me. Why are we climbing this fence?  
8\. The things you find amusing astound me sometimes  
9\. You’re one insult away from starting a war.  
10\. “Why is he bleeding?” “Because he’s an idiot.” “I didn’t know that idiocy caused people to spontaneously start bleeding from the nose.” “I think it’s a new phenomenon.”  
11\. “Don’t add stuff from your to do list to my to do list."  
12\. “On a scale from one to ten, how bad do you think it would be if I—“ “At least a twenty.”  
Chapter 3  
13\. Imagine Person A of your OTP seeing Person B with bed hair for the first time, and being totally blown away by how cute/hot/etc. they look with their hair being a huge mess.  
14\. Like I expected, you’re much comfier than my pillow  
15\. Is that...my shirt?  
16\. You come to my room and wake me up at 4am, to cuddle?  
17\. *About a messy room* "I'm having nightmares where I'm being chased by boxes with arms and they tackle me and throw clothes on top of me and secure it with heavy objects and while I'm lying there, you're standing in the corner laughing opening a bottle of wine although there are a dozen half empty bottles already standing at your feet!"  
18\. Imagine person A walking out of the bathroom after a shower, half-naked and wreathed in steam, and B immediately dropping whatever they were holding.  
Chapter 4  
19\. Imagine person A of your OTP relentlessly flirting with B in public, just to see B blush  
20\. I told myself I wouldn't kiss you tonight  
21\. "We kissed." "I remember." "It was a great kiss." "Yeah." "So you concur?" "Dear god, yes."  
22\. “Wow, I feel important." "You are important”  
23\. “Will you just stand still?" *Kiss her/him  
24\. It is the first time in my life that I lie on actual silk sheets and I immediately ruin them.

Wow. Now that I realise it is 24 of them I kind of wish I had kept this story to myself and posted it as an advent calendar some time, LOL. Not really though. I wanted to post all as one first, but then I had to leave Dublin because of _the virus_ and go back home to Germany all head over heels and then doing uni online was crazy for a few weeks and it took me a little over a month before I could work on it again, but I really wanted to publish parts and I had already made my plan with four parts (meeting, becoming friends, moving in together, the finale) so I reckoned, why not publish it in four chapters? This is very much the longest thing I have ever written for the archive, and my first Hamratio, and my first ever published smut – and have I mentioned I’m not a Native speaker? So my point is, please please _please_ let me know how you like it and how I did. [see for more in end notes]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now, before I leave you, a few more words about my headcanon regarding _Hamlet._ Now, this is obviously set pre-plot and I won’t write more in this setting because I imagine that in this one it all ends with the well-known tragedy, maybe I’ll write something AU some time. I also plan to write this from Hamlet’s POV and publish it, but no promises because I don’t know how much time I’ll have in the near future. But maybe, and I think it could be fun.  
> In this, I like to think of Horatio to be very demisexual, but also I am very demisexual and it’s the only way I can write believable characters and still make smut work so... yeah. My Hamlet is also a bitch for consent and his confirmed main kink is feeling safe and protected, fight me on it. I was chatting with a friend who helped me out a bit and we agreed that Horatio is, and I quote, “an absolute power bottom.” I have never read such a version of Horatio in smut so I am glad to have put it out here as an option now because I think he deserves to take control, but receive attention. I also think Ophelia is awesome and I want her and Hamlet to be best bros who have decided that they will one day get married and be a great king and queen although they aren’t in love, but this way they can still be happy. And I live for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern being good guys and great friends to Hamlet, but also being inconveniently caught in this situation of having to report back to the court what Hamlet is doing – but maybe more on the tragedy of that in the Hamlet POV.  
> Mutual Pining and Slow Burn are my confirmed favourite tags so here you go, I hope it counts as that. Also, I’d like to use this moment to complain about how difficult and exhausting writing smut it??? For one, you spend hours writing and the outcome is a few pages at best. And then it gets worse when you have to find words that don’t make you cringe or are just stupid or unromantic. So this is my take at smut – with quite some laughing, a lot of talking and so much consent and communication that I could feel utterly comfortable and not too weirdly self-conscious while writing.  
> Hamlet is obviously struggling with depression and I would have loved to dig deeper into it, but (1) this was Horatio’s POV, and (2) I didn’t want to have to tag any great warnings, and (3) I don’t really feel qualified? So maybe there’ll be more of that in the Hamlet POV, but we’ll see. This is also probably a convenient moment to say that I hope I didn’t cause any offense to anyone with anything. If I did or if I forgot to tag anything that you think I should have tagged, please let me know _kindly_ in the comments. I love comments. But who doesn’t, to be fair?  
> Let me also just say I love Shakespeare and want to do the work some justice so I hope this isn’t OOC or anything. If so, well... I’ve tried. Hamlet and Horatio are in love. Those who deny it simply don’t understand Shakespeare, that’s my conviction, fight me on it if you have to!  
> I feel like this chapter went from very emotional to... well, to sex, at times, and I don’t know whether I handled that very well? I hope I did. As you can probably read out of this, I am still horribly self-conscious about this chapter, but hey, I hope you enjoyed it!
> 
> Otherwise, I hope y’all are staying safe and healthy. Stay at home as much as you can wherever you are and take good care of yourself and your loved ones. You know the rules, I suppose. I imagine it is an upside of this crisis that some of us have the time and inspiration to write more and share that with everyone throughout it so I here is to all of you and I hope it made your days a little better to get to read this. We’ll get through this shit and have more amazing content in the end.  
> And now, for those that have actually stuck with me throughout these way too long end notes, here’s a pun for your efforts. (I usually put a pun at the end of every chapter when posting something, but as I only spontaneously made this into four parts, I’ll give you one really good one instead! (in my opinion))
> 
> Two windmills are standing in a wind farm. One asks, “What’s your favourite kind of music?” The other says, “I’m a big metal fan.”
> 
> Thank you so much for reading. Read you again some time.  
> Yours faithfully,  
> the devil’s first angel


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